: 


igi  oti  of 

a  liter  a  rp  j 

(Eeliejfo  Script  otfe)  % 
Hh'djarb  He  ©allieane 


GIFT  OF 

si  KLtY  W.  ML'DD 

and 

GEORGE  L  COCHftAH     MEYIR  El  SASSER 

DK.  JOHN  ft.  HAYNBfl    WILLIAM  L  HOHNOLD 

IAMBI  R.  MARTIN  MKS.  JOSEPH  P.ftAftTOSI 

to  thi 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

SOUTHERN  BRANCH 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  datf 


low 


tMVERSl  ■    \L1F0RNIA 

fGELES 
LIBRARY 


C^e  Religion  of 
a  Utterary  Jftan 


'  The  old  gods  pass' — the  cry  goes  round, 
'  Lo  I  how  their  tcmf>Us  strnu  the  ground'  ; 
Nor  mark  we  where,  on  new-Jfedged  wings, 
Faith,  like  the  phoenix,  soars  and  sings. 


I    J       > 


•  =  •>  »•  >  • 


TLbc  IRcligion  of  a 
Xiterars  flftan:   : 


£ 


VL 


(IReligio  Scriptoris)  b# 
IRicbarfc  Xe  (Ballienne 


S» 


IReWHJorfe:  G.P.Putnatris 

Sons,  27 IV.  Twenty-third  St. 
XOIt&On  :  -£/&»  Mathews 
and  John  Lane  :  iSgj 


4 


# 


"^<&5>-  ^3^»»^w«is^<®»>i 


CorVRIGHT,    1893 

By  G.   P.   PUTNAM'S  SONS 

Entered  at  Stationers'  Hal!,  London 

By  Richakd  Le  Gallienne 


^-€8  ) 


To  A.  E.  FLETCHER,  Esq. 


DEDICA- 
TION 


71  /f  Y  dear  Mr.  Fletcher, — Some  one  has 
-£'■*■  said  that  the  true  pulpit  of  these 
latter  days  is  the  newspaper  press.  You 
have  been  one  of  the  first  journalists  to  apply 
this  dictum.  You  have  realised  that  even 
poor  '  average  humanity '  cares  for  something 
beyond  race-meetings,  ?nurders,  divorce  cases, 
and  scandals  in  high  life;  that  a  new  book, 
or  a  new  development  of  thought,  may  hope 
to  rival  even  these  breathless  interests ;  that 
the  press  should  appeal  to  the  higher  as 
well  as  the  lower  instincts;  and  in  conse- 
quence you  have  virtually  been  the  founder 
of  a  great  newspaper.  Some  time  ago,  you 
gave  me  the  opportunity  of  raising  an  im- 
portant question — to  me  the  most  important 
of  questions — as  to  whether  Christianity  was 
really  so  obsolete  to-day  as  its  opponents 
glibly  assume. 

We  have  nowadays  to  put  up  with  a 
good  deal  in  the  way  of  sacrilege,  but  I 
could  not  stand  by  and  see  the  sublime  figure 
of  Christ  vulgarised  to  make  an  Adelphi 
holiday,  and,  as  no  more  competent  Eighth 


VI 


€bc  Religion  of 


DEDICA- 
TION 


Champion  of  Christendom  appeared  to  be 
forthcoming,  I  ventured  to  play  David  to 
Mr.  Buchanan's  Philistine.  You  obligingly 
allowed  me  the  use  of  your  battlefield  for 
the  occasion.  Thence  sprung  the  follow. 
Pages — though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is 
not,  I  think,  a  single  phrase  in  them  repro- 
duced from  my  '  Daily  Chronicle '  letters — 
and,  t/ierefore,  it  will  hardly  seem  inappro- 
priate that  I  should  wish  to  associate  your 
name  with  a  book  which  owes  so  much  to 
your  sympathy.  I  have  condensed  in  its 
pages  much  religious  experience,  and  long 
and  ardent  thought  on  spiritual  matters — 
which  have  ever  had  for  me  the  deepest 
fascination.  If  I  have  said  a  true  word  for 
the  cause  of  true  religion,  I  ask  nothing 
better.  If  I  have  missed  saying  it  on  this 
occasion,  I  shall  persevere  in  the  hope  of 
saying  it  on  some  other. 

At  all  events,  I  hope  you  will  accept  this 
'  Religio  Scriptoris '  as  a  token  of  my  grati- 
tude for  your  many  kindnesses,  and  believe 

me 

Yours  sincerely, 


Richard  Le  Gallienne. 


Mulberry  Cottage,  New  Brentford, 
26th  October  1893. 


a  Literarp  apan 


Vll 


CON- 
TENTS 


THE   CONTENTS 


PRELIMINARIES 

The  'Minor  Poet'  on  Religion!  Professional 
Rivals — The  Churchman  and  the  Scientist: 
Spiritualists  and  Materialists :  A  Medi- 
tation on  Rook-pie  :  The  Spiritual  Sense  : 
Religion  a  System  of  Symbolism:  Science 
also  deals  with  Symbols:  Average  Church- 
man and  Average  Scientist  one  and  the 
same:  Concerning  Vegetarianism  :  'Caveat 
lector' !  Schismatics:  The  Literary  Man  of 
the  Period Pages  i-io 

II 

THE  RELATIVE  SPIRIT 

Modern  Advantages  in  Discussion  of  Religion  : 
A  Writer  but  the  Representative  of  a  Tem- 
perament: Forgotten  Heresies:  Old-time 
Terminus — The  Inspiration  of  the  Bible: 
Miracles :  '  One '  (commercial)  '  traveller 
returns':  Concerning  Documents :  Blessed 
Divorce  of  Theology  and  Religion :  The 
Relative  Spirit:  Limits  of  its  Jurisdic- 
tion: Polygamy  and  Monogamy  .        .         .  10-17 


III 
WHAT   IS   SIN? 

What  is  Truth  f— the  Question  of  the  Past: 
What  is  Sin  f—the  Question  for  the  Present: 
Mr.  Pater's  '  Marius,  the  Epicurean ':  Have 


Vlll 


CON 
TENTS 


Ctic  Religion  of 


we  a  Lower  and  a  Higher  Nature  f  Old  Sim 
become  New  Duties:  A  tentative  definition 
of  Sin Pag"  *7-22 

IV 

WHAT  IS  PAIN? 
Original  Sin:  The  Mystery  of Joy  :  The  Ques- 
tion stated  too  much  in  terms  of  our  own 
existence:  Concerning  the  use  throughout  of 
the  word  '  God '  :  Pain  a  Process  :  The  Sen- 
timental Spectator :  Pain  contemplated  loo 
much  in  the  bulk:  Mistaken  Pity:  Hinton 
on  Pain  :  '  In  Itself  /—an  impossible  Con- 
ception :  The  Discipline  of  Pain :  The 
Sufferer  the  Real  Authority:  The  Minis- 
try of  Pain:  Mr.  George  Meredith:  Mr. 
Coventry  Pa/more:  Browning:  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer:  Sclwpenhauer  and  Spinoza  :  All 
Theories  Relative:  The  Question  at  its  worst: 
Pessimism^  Cowardice  and  Selfishness:  An 
Age  of  Cowardice 22-35 


FREE-WILL 
A  Postulate:  Conditions  of  the  Will:  The 
'  Clockwork '  Objection  :  Will  Batteries  : 
Matters  outside  our  Will :  What  have  we 
to  live  for?  The  Egotism  of  Man  :  Humility 
the  key  to  many  mysteries  :  '  To  the  praise 
and  glory  of  God '  :  The  world  still  Ptole- 
maist  in  practice,  though  Coper nican  in 
theory  :  Life  a  free  boon  :  '  Counting  our 
mercies' :  The  loss  of  'free-will'  really  a 
gain 3^44 

VI 

THE  HEREAFTER 

Familiar  notions  on  the  subject :  Do  we  really 
care  about  immortality  t  A  theory  of  friend- 
skip  :    The  fallacy  of  '  Personality ' :    The 


a  Literarp  8£an 


IX 


alleged  precious?iess  of  '  Personality  '  :  The 
Wastefulness  of  Death  :  Life  not  necessarily 
futile  :  Omar  Khayydm  :  '  Irreparable  loss  ' 
of  a  Learned  Man  :  The  Hereafter  as  Com- 
pensation :  The  Braver  View :  Mr.  John 
Davidson  s  '  Fleet  Street  Eclogues  '  :  The 
Hereafter  a  belief  for  the  Happy  rather 
than  the  Unhappy  :  '  The  Garden  of  Proser- 
pine ' Pages  44-55 


CON- 
TENTS 


VII 

ESSENTIAL  CHRISTIANITY 

'Is  Christianity  played  out?'  Christ  and  the 
Life  to  Come:  Christianity  pre-eminently  a 
religion  for  this  world:  Is  Christianity  on 
the  wane  ?  The  power  of  Christianity  largely 
in  its  composite  character  :  The  Humanity 
as  well  as  Spirituality  of  Christ's  teaching: 
Truth  inevitably  soiled  in  its  transmission 
through  the  hands  of  Apostles  and  Priests  : 
Catholicisfn :  Concerning  Pi-iests :  The 
Tragedy  of  the  Idealist :  Ibsen's  '  Brand  '  : 
The  Paradox  of  Christian  History  :  The 
History  of  Christianity  and  the  Teaching  of 
Christ  not  to  be  confused :  The  world  has 
never  tried  the  Gospel  of  Christ  :  Early  per- 
version of  the  Christian  ideal :  The  world 
was  not  ready  for  Christianity  :  Material 
preoccupations  :  7 he  spiritual  significance  of 
Copernicus  :  The  true  perspective  of  Life  :  A 
simile  of  man :  The  complex  is  always 
obvious,  it  is  the  simple  that  is  mysterious  : 
The  world  more  ready  for  Christianity : 
Christ  the  one  authority  on  the  Christian 
Ideal:  Christ  misinterpreted:  Giles  Fletcher's 
'  Christ's  Triumph  after  Death  ' :  The  true 
Christian 55-73 


X 


CON. 
TFNTS 


€bc  Religion  of 


VIII 

DOGMA   AND  SYMBOLISM 

The  soul  of  good  in  Christian  dogma  :  The 
Word  God  and  it\  alternatives  :  Mr.  J', it- 
more '  s  '  Religio  Poetae '  :  The  Reality  of 
'Conversion':  The  Mother  and  Child: 
Grace:  Faith  and  Works:  Prayer:  'Natu- 
ral' Prayer:  The  Limitations  of  Christian 
Symbolism  :  Pan  and  Christ  have  both  a 
place  in  the  human  Pantheon  :  The  Religion 
of  the  Future .  Mr.  Norman  Gale's  '  A 
Country  Muse '      .  Pagts  73-83 


IX 

THE   RELIGIOUS  SENSES 

Natural'  Religious  Senses:  The  Spiritual 
Sense:  '  Simple  People':  The  Sense  of 
Wonder  :  The  Sense  of  Beauty  :  Its  Degra- 
dation in  '  Dtfcadcnt'  Art:  '  Dicadence' 
mainly  a  disregard  of  proportion  :  Limited 
Definitions  of  the  Sense  of  Beauty  :  Beauty 
more  than  Form  and  Colour:  Men  and 
Women  imply  more  than  Form  and  Colour  : 
Art  subject  to  greater  laws  than  its  own  : 
The  Sense  of  Pity  often  deadened  by  the  Sense 
of  Beauty:  Why  should  I  live  for  others? 
Unselfishness  an  inherent  condition  of  Society  : 
The  birth  of  an  ideal:  The  Sense  of  Hum- 
our :  The  '  New  Humour '  :  Proportion  the 
vital  principle  of  Humour :  The  proper 
limits  of  Humour :  Humour  the  parent  of 
humility :  The  tears  of  Humour :  The 
Selfishness,  Misery,  and  Tragedy  of  Life 
largely  due  to  a  Lack  of  Humour  :  The  Sense 
of  Gratitude 83-102 


a  Literatp  8^an 


XI 


CON- 
TENTS 


POSTSCRIPT 

George  Borrow  and  the  Dog-fighter :  The 
Evangel  of  the  Demi-monde  and  the  Music- 
hall :  The  Dream  of  the  Dicadent :  Lombroso 
on  '  the  Alan  of  Genius '  :  '  Modern  doubt ' 
largely  a  newspaper  scare:  Tlie  Census  of 
the  Happy:  Intellectual  pride:  Our  debt 
to  modern  science  :  The  Biologist  or  the 
Poet  ?  The  '  Root '  Fallacy — the  Creative 
'  Miracle '  :  Where  Science  ends  Religion 
and  Poetry  begin :  The  Anthropologist's 
'  explanation  '  of  Religion  :  Renan  on  Re- 
ligion :  The  '  raison  d'etre  '  of  the  Religious 
Instinct:  The  Sanctity  of  Life:  The  Re- 
ligion of  the  Spirit :  Joachim  de  Lyra  :  Re- 
ligion the  most  ancient  of  the  Sciences  :  Our 
vast  debt  to  the  Past :  Our  most  distinc- 
tively '  modern  '  ideas  :  Evolution  :  Demo- 
cracy:  Art:  Literature:  Religion:  The 
cry  for  a  '  Message'  .        .        .         Pages  102-ni 


Clje  iMigton  of  a  titzvaxy  ittau 


PRELIMINARIES 

IN  spite  of  valiant  exemplars  to 
the  contrary,  we  would  seem  to 
insist  more  and  more  that  the  writer, 
like  the  tailor,  is  but  the  ninth  part 
of  a  man  ;  and  that  one  of  those  poor 
literary  infusoria,  '  the  minor  poets,' 
should  have  his  speculations  on  the 
greater  issues  of  life,  that  he  should, 
like  the  Hottentot,  have  his  'idea  of 
a  Supreme  Being,'  is  matter  for 
boundless  astonishment.  Many  in- 
deed would  seem  to  find  the  idea 
hugely  amusing.  To  what  a  fall  in 
the  general  estimation  of  poetry  does 
this  point. 

TWO  classes  of  objectors  meet 
the  layman  on  the  threshold 
of  a  religious  inquiry  such  as  I 
am  about  to  undertake  :  the  profes- 
sionals of  two  rival  doctrines,  the 
Churchman  and  the  Man  of  Science. 


The  'minor 
poet '  on 
religion ! 


Professional 
rivals  :  the 

Churchman 

and  the 

Scientist. 


Cbc  Religion  of 


PRELIM- 
INARIES 


Spiritualists 

and 
Materialists 


Each  insists  that  the  subject  is  his 
inviolable  property  ;  and  in  proof 
one  brings  his  Bible,  and  the  other 
a  hermetically  sealed  tube  contain- 
ing protoplasm.  Well,  I  must  be 
content  to  be  the  scorn  of  both. 
Yet  I  must  guard  myself  against 
misconception  as  to  my  use  of  those 
terms  '  Churchman '  and  '  Man  of 
Science,'  for,  indeed,  there  are  two 
very  different  types  of  each.  Pro- 
bably they  are  ultimately  distin- 
guished by  this :  that  for  one  type 
the  puzzle  of  the  world  is  entirely 
set  at  rest  by  his  Bible  and  his 
protoplasm  (if  it  can  be  said  to 
have  been  a  puzzle  at  all  to  one 
who  is  so  easily  satisfied),  while 
for  the  other  his  Bible  and  his  pro- 
toplasm are  but  symbols  of  a  mystery 
which  they  focus,  but  are  iar  from 
explaining.  In  short,  the  world  is 
divided  into  natural  spiritualists  and 
materialists.  For  the  materialists 
the  concrete  facts  of  existence  are 
alone  important,  indeed  they  have  no 
glimpse  of  any  other,  no  conception  of 
aught  they  cannot  touch  and  handle, 
eat,  or    see    through    a    microscope ; 


a  Hiterarp  s^an 


the  spiritualists,  on  the  contrary, 
are  almost  in  danger  of  neglecting 
those  concrete  facts,  so  impressed 
are  they  by  the  transfiguring  mys- 
teries of  which  to  their  eyes  they 
seem  but  the  transitory  symbols. 
To  one  the  world  is  opaque,  shut 
within  the  walls  of  form  and  colour ; 
to  the  other  it  is  mystically  trans- 
parent, palpitating  with  occult  signi- 
ficance. 


PRELIM- 
INARIES 


AS  I  write,  they  are  shooting  rooks 
in  an  avenue  outside  my  garden. 
The  boys  of  the  village  are  there  in 
great  force.  Just  now  I  sauntered 
down  amongst  them,  and  there  in  a 
little  black  heap  at  the  foot  of  a  tree 
was  '  the  bag.'  I  took  up  one  of  the 
poor  dead  cawers.  It  was  still  shud- 
deringly  warm.  I  took  up  another 
and  another,  and  noticed  that  the 
heads  of  each  were  missing.  '  Oh, 
that  was  to  prevent  them  tasting 
bitter ! '  said  my  neighbour.  And 
then  I  realised  that  the  one  signifi- 
cance  of  these  poor  dead  things  was 
1  rook-pie '!  Up  went  the  ugly  gleam- 
ing tube.    Bang  !     In  an  instant  came 


A 

Meditation 
on  Rook- 
pie. 


Cijc  Ecligion  of 


PRELIM 
INARIKS 


the  sound  of  a  body  toppling  through 
the  branclu  is,  and  another  young 
rook  was  on  its  way  to  rook-pic.  In 
a  twinkling  one  of  the  urchins  seized 
hold  of  him,  and  had  nonchalantly 
wrenched  away  his  head  and  cast  it 
in  the  grass  within  half  a  minute  of 
his  final  caw  up  among  the  green 
boughs.  Well,  I  know  it  is  morbid 
sensibility.  I  know  I  ought  to  take  a 
manly  delight  in  slaying  my  feathered 
fellow-creatures.  All  the  same,  I 
could  not  get  the  thought  out  of  my 
head  that  half  a  minute  before  that 
rook  had  been  sailing  and  cawing  in 
the  evening  sunlight,  and  that  before 
you  could  say  '  Caw  ! '  it  was  a  poor 
lifeless  lump  of  feathers,  with  its  head 
off.  Ludicrous  as  it  may  seem,  here 
was  the  mystery  of  life  and  death 
sickeningly  bare.  Here  were  two 
sharply-contrasted  points  of  view 
brought  one  against  the  other. 
'  That  makes  the  twentieth  ! '  grimly 
smiled  the  man  of  the  steel  tube, 
already  looking  about  for  the  twenty- 
first.  Yes,  which  of  those  stormily 
circling  above  there  was  to  be  the 
twenty-first?       Which     had    destiny 


a  Hiterarp  a^an 


already  marked  with  the  mark  of 
death,  the  corvine  Valkyrior  already 
chosen  for  rook-pie  ?  There  was 
another  mystery  to  my  ridiculous 
sensibility,  and,  not  feeling  equal  to 
awaiting  its  solution,  I  came  back  to 
my  desk.  Before  I  had  taken  up  my 
pen  came  the  bark  of  the  gun,  and  I 
knew  that  the  fatal  choice  had  been 
made. 

What  has  all  this  to  do  with  re- 
ligion? Much.  For  one  temperament 
the  world  means  terrible  and  beauti- 
ful mysteries — for  another  it  simply 
means  '  rook-pie.'  For  the  mariner 
the  stars,  so  eloquent  to  the  lover, 
are  but  celestial  signposts,  set  there, 
forsooth,  to  pilot  his  poor  voyage ; 
for  the  farmer  the  mysterious  beauty 
of  the  seasons  means  but  'weather' 
and  '  crops '  ;  for  the  undertaker 
death  means  just — coffins. 

THE  world  then  is  unmistakably 
and  sharply  divided  into  those 
who  have  what  we  may  call  the 
Spiritual  Sense,  and  those  who  have 
it  not.  It  is  obvious  that  the  large 
majority  of  mankind   belong  to   the 


PRELIM- 
INARIES 


The 

Spiritual 
Sense. 


$Lbc  IRcIigion  of 


PRELIM- 
INARIES 


Religion  a 

system  of 

Symbolism. 


Science 
also  deals 

with 
symbols. 


latter  class.  The  churches  are  full 
of  them,  for,  properly  spcakii 
'religion'  as  conventionally  unci 
stood  makes  more  materialists  than 
science.  Organised  religion  is  but  a 
form  of  more  or  less  arbitrary  sym- 
bolism. For  some  few  the  symbolism 
is  alive  :  is,  as  we  said,  transparent, 
and  radiant  with  the  occult  signifi- 
cance for  which  it  stands.  For  the 
majority  it  is  as  opaque  as  the  rest 
of  their  daily  interests,  nor,  owing  to 
their  temperaments,  could  it  ever  have 
been  otherwise.  (And  here  we  may 
remark,  in  passing,  on  the  anomaly 
of  a  religion  so  essentially  transcen- 
dental as  that  of  Christianity  being 
the  authorised  religion  of  so  consider- 
able a  proportion  of  the  earth's  popu- 
lation. Of  course,  it  has  only  become 
so  by  a   materialisation   common  to 

all  religion a  materialisation  which 

makes  one  as  valuable  or  as  valueless 
as  another.)  Now,  science  as  well  as 
religion  deals  with  symbols,  for  there 
is  no  single  fact  of  life,  no  existence 
in  nature,  which,  truly  seen,  is  not 
symbolic.  But  how  often  does  your 
average    scientist    realise    this  ?       In 


a  Literacy  6£an 


7 


his  carefully-stored  observations  he 
fondly  sees  explanations  ;  though, 
of  course,  the  truer  scientist  only 
sees  in  them  ever  new  centres  of 
wonder,  new  revelations  of  the  un- 
knowable, that  baffle  still  more  than 
they  reveal. 


PRELIM- 
INARIES 


THE  average  churchman  and  the 
average  scientist  are,  therefore, 
on  the  same  plane  of  an  unmysterious 
'rook-pie,'  sleep-and-eat  existence; 
and  the  only  possible  broad  division 
of  men  from  the  standpoint  of 
religion  is  into  spiritualists  and 
materialists.  In  making  this  dis- 
tinction, of  course,  we  must  not 
forget  that  the  mere  necessity  of 
existence  forces  us  all  to  be  in  some 
measure  materialistic.  The  spiritual 
insight  is  mercifully  intermittent — at 
meal  times,  for  example.  How  should 
we  fare  if  cows  and  sheep  were  always 
to  appeal  to  us  as  forms  of  symbolism, 
so  that  the  roast  lamb  cried  from  the 
dish  like  the  blood  of  Abel.  The 
vegetarian  is  a  man  who  is  thus 
perpetually  haunted  by  the  symbolic 
nature    of  flesh-meat.     And    yet  his 


Average 
churchman 
and  average 
scientist  one 

and  the 
same. 


Concerning 
vegetarian- 
ism. 


8 


Cfjc  Religion  of 


PREI.IM 

INAKI1  S 


restriction  to  vegetable  forms  is  ob- 
viously illogical.  If  it  be  the  brother- 
hood of  life  that  the  vegetarian  sup- 
poses himself  to  be  regarding,  is  not 
the  cabbage  also  a  fellow-creature,  and 
why  slay  the  innocent  asparagus  in 
its  succulent  green  youth  ?  Is  it  not 
simply  that,  in  the  case  of  vegetables, 
the  vegetarian  can  'murder'  without 
a  shock  to  his  nerves,  and  in  the 
case  of  animals  he  cannot  ?  The  plant 
may  be  said  to  die  a  natural,  and  the 
animal  a  violent,  death.  In  one  case 
the  gore,  the  butcher's  knife,  and  the 
pathetic  pleading  eye  of  the  poor 
victim,  do  not  appal  the  imagination. 
Green  blood  instead  of  red,  and  no 
moans  (unless  one  dines  off  mandra- 
gora),  that  seems  the  only  difference. 
The  precious  spikenard  of  life  is 
spilled  in  each  case  alike,  and  the 
'murder'  is  in  each  case  unavoidable. 
Life,  like  an  Eastern  queen,  imperi- 
ously demands  death,  and  she  must 
have  it. 

We  are  all,  I  resume,  of  neces- 
sity more  or  less  materialistic,  but 
some  of  us  contain  as  well  a  certain 
leaven    of    spirituality,    while    some 


a  Uttetarp  a^an 


of    us    seem    to     contain     none    at 
all. 

Whatever  appeal  the  following 
naive  reflections  on  great  matters 
may  have  to  any,  it  will  be  to  the 
person  leavened  with  that  modicum 
of  spirituality  :  let  us  call  him,  for 
short,  the  spiritualist.  Other  per- 
sons are  hereby  warned  against  a 
sure  sacrifice  of  their  lives,  a  wilful 
suicide  of  their  time. 

BUT,  unfortunately,  ' the  spiritual- 
ist' is  divided  among  number- 
less small  schisms  ;  and  I  must,  for 
certain,  miscarry  with  many,  simply 
because  I  do  not  subscribe  to  that 
particular  form  of  symbolism  which 
they  confuse  with  essential  religion. 
The  Wesleyan,  the  Baptist,  the 
Anglican,  the  Catholic — save  in  that 
sympathetic  part  of  him  which  is  free 
of  his  creed — will  have  none  of  me. 
By  another  very  different  type  I 
shall  be  no  less  rejected — the  typical 
literary  man  of  the  period,  who  sips 
his  absinthe  (with  a  charmingly  boyish 
sense  of  sin),  and  reads  Huysmans. 
To  discuss  such  antiquated  matters 


PRELIM- 
INARIES 

Caveat 
lector  ! 


Schisma- 
tics. 


The  literary 

man  of  the 

period. 


IO 


Cbc  Religion  of 


PRELIM- 

INAi 


as  God,  Love,  and   Duty,  when  one 

might  be  wrangling  over  Degas, 

or  grappling  with  a  sonnet  by 

Mallarme! 


II 


Modern     I 

Advantages: 

in  discus- 

sion  of 

Religion. 


A  Writer 

but  the 
representa- 
tive of  a 
tempera- 
ment. 


THE    RELATIVE    SPIRIT 

BUT  in  spite  of  the  survival,  not 
to  say  the  flourishing  existence, 
of  sects  and  schisms,  we  have  to-day 
a  considerable  advantage  over  our 
fathers  in  approaching  this  question 
of  Religion.  We  are  in  the  position 
to  assume  gaily  much  that  they  could 
only  hold  by  dying  for  ;  though,  of 
course,  this  can  only  be  assumed  in 
presence  of  a  given  audience.  The 
world  is  no  more  of  one  opinion 
to-day  than  it  ever  was  or  is  ever 
likely  to  be.  Every  book  is  there- 
fore dependent  for  readers  on  a  certain 
limited  section  of  society  ;  no  writer 
can  be  more  than  the  representative 
of  a  certain  temperament.  I  said  that 
the  appeal  of  these  pages  will  in  the 
first  instance  be  to  'spiritualists'  (the 


a  Litcrarp  e^an 


1 1 


reader  has,  of  course,  understood  that 
by  that  term  I  do  not  mean  table- 
rappers  or  any  other  unauthorised 
limiters  of  its  meaning)  ;  in  the  second 
place,  then,  it  will  be  to  those  who, 
in  Carlyle's  phrase,  have  '  swallowed 
formulae ' — after  all,  a  very  large 
class  to-day  ;  a  class  which  realises 
that,  while  creeds  are  temporal,  re- 
ligion is  eternal.  To  that  other  class, 
however,  which  has  also  '  swallowed  ' 
religion  itself,  and  looks  upon  the  very 
word  as  obsolete,  my  poor  words  must 
seem  but  as  old  wives'  tales. 


THE  RE- 
LATIVE 
SPIRIT 


WE  are  permitted  to  smile  now 
at  questions  which  were  liter- 
ally burning  to  our  ancestors,  such 
gracious  heresies,  for  instance,  as 
those  which  so 'plunged  and  gravelled' 
the  soul  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne  :  '  that 
the  soul  might  in  some  sort  perish 
and  rise  again  with  the  body,'  '  that 
all  men  should  finally  be  saved,' 
or  '  that  we  might  pray  for  the 
dead.'  But  these,  says  the  gloss,  '  he 
suffered  not  to  grow  into  heresies.' 
Such  terrible  heresies  as  these  no 
longer  affright  us.     We  believe  them 


Forgotten 
heresies. 


12 


THERE- 
LATIVK 
SPIRIT 


Ct)c  Ecligton  of 


or  leave  them  as  we  list,  though  there 
are  few  of  us,  I  imagine,  who  do  not, 
in  different  terms,  hold  the  possible 
salvation  of  the  whole  race  of  man, 
and  who  do  not  sometimes,  when  the 
world  is  budding  and  shooting  in  the 
spring,  pray  softly  in  our  own  way 
for  the  souls  of  those  beloved  who 
are  no  longer  with  us  in  the  sun  and 
the  sweet  air. 


Old-time 
terminus : 
The  In- 
spiration of 
the  Bible. 


Miracles. 


THE  most  vital  point  at  which 
religious  controversy  formerly 
ever  arrived  was  the  Inspiration  of  the 
Bible.  But  that  difficulty  has  passed. 
We  now  either  accept  or  reject  the 
inspiration  of  a  hundred  Bibles,  and 
the  question  is  no  longer  of  the  in- 
spiration of  one  book,  but  of  the  in- 
spiration of  the  human  soul,  which 
has  dictated  all  books.  Once  the 
question  was  of  miracles,  but  now 
we  see  that  the  authenticity  of  this 
or  that  isolated  miracle  is  of  little 
account  in  a  world  which  is  itself 
one  glorious  unfathomable  miracle. 
'  Now  for  my  life,'  again  to  quote  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  '  it  is  a  miracle  of 
thirty  years,  which  to  relate  were  not 


a  Litctarp  s^an 


a  History,  but  a  piece  of  Poetry,  and 
would    sound    to    common    ears  like 
a    Fable.'       A    certain    editor,    com- 
menting  on    this    passage,   remarks : 
'Yet   its   actual   incidents  justify  no 
such  description  ' !    This  editor  seems 
to  me  the  type  of  man  who  asks  for 
a  miracle,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word,  an  aberration   from   the  usual 
course  of  Nature,  a   sign,  a  wonder, 
as  if  we  had  not  about  us  far  more 
wonders  already  than  we  have  time 
to  realise.     Who  that  has  ever  been 
young,    that    has    lived    light    in   the 
spring,  can   fail   to  understand  what 
Sir  Thomas    Browne    meant    by    his 
miracle  of  thirty  years  ?     It  was  to 
those  who  cannot  that  Christ  refused 
a    sign.      If  the   world    with    all    its 
myriad  wonders  will  not  touch  them, 
if  through  the  veils  of  all  its  so  trans- 
parent  forms    they    cannot   see   the 
face   of    God    flashing — neither   will 
they  believe   though    one    rose  from 
the   dead.     To-morrow   his  resurrec- 
tion would    be  as  commonplace   as 
the  telephone,  and  enterprising  firms 
would  be  interviewing  him  with  an  eye 
to  branch  establishments  in  Hades. 


THE  RE- 
LATIVE 
SPIRIT 


'  One '  (com- 
mercial) 
'  traveller 
returns.' 


14 


I'M  I    II 

I.ATIYK 

SPIRIT 


€bc  Religion  of 


Concerning 
Documents. 


Blessed 
Divorce  of 
Theology 

and 
Religion. 


The 

Relative 

Spirit, 


The  Trinity,  the  Atonement,  In- 
fant Baptism,  Baptismal  Regenera- 
tion, the  Immortality  of  the  Soul,  the 
Life  Hereafter — these  and  many  other 
dogmas  are  now  seen  to  be  matters  of 
symbolism  or  personal  intuition. 

IT  is  no  longer  necessary  for  us 
to  dispute  painfully  concerning 
documents.  All  such  matters  the 
German  commentators  and  M.  Renan 
have  already  settled  for  us,  and  faith 
has  really  nothing  either  to  hope  or 
fear  from  the  discovery  of  any  num- 
ber of  gospels.  In  short,  we  have 
accomplished  the  inestimable  separa- 
tion of  theology  and  religion.  Our 
religion  no  longer  stands  or  falls  by 
the  Hebrew  Bible. 

THERE  can  be  no  doubt  that  we 
largely  owe  this  immense  gain 
to  science  and  the  scientific  method  of 
study:  not  because  science  has  proved 
or  disproved  this  or  that — for  it  can 
prove  or  disprove  nothing  that  is  ulti- 
mate— but  because  it  has  familiarised 
us  with  that  philosophical  instrument 
of  inquiry,  the  Relative  Spirit.     By 


/ 


a  Literarp  a^an 


15 


its  aid  matters  which  were  once  re- 
garded as  final,  customs  and  opinions 
over  which  many  a  human  heart  has 
been  broken,  are  now  seen  to  be 
merely  relative  to  certain  conditions, 
as  fashions  in  dress,  and  peculiarities 
in  national  manners  are  relative.  Be- 
coming more  and  more  of  a  law  unto 
ourselves,  we  pretend  less  to  be  a  law 
unto  others.  Before  the  breath  of  that 
genial  spirit  the  icy  conventions  and 
prejudices  of  mankind  melt  away  as 
frost  in  the  sun,  and  the  liberated 
souls  of  men  and  women  laugh  and 
are  glad  in  the  joyous  developments 
of  their  natures  as  God  made  them. 


THE  RE- 
LATIVE 
SPIRIT 


BUT — and  here  we  approach  the 
centre — let  us  not  forget,  what 
indeed  the  Relative  Spirit  would 
itself  teach  us,  that  its  jurisdiction 
ends  at  a  certain  point.  It  carries 
us  too  far  if  it  causes  us  to  imagine 
that  there  is  nothing  absolute  in  life, 
nothing  which  is  not,  after  all,  a  matter 
of  opinion.  Indeed  its  operation,  like 
all  philosophic  processes,  is  entirely 
among  forms  and  formulae — it  cannot 
dissolve  the  essences  of  things.     Be- 


Limits  of 
its  Jurisdic- 
tion. 


10 


Kbc  iRcligton  of 


THE  RE- 
LAI  i\  I 
SPIRIT 


neath  every  convention  tliere  is  a  vital 
principle  over  which  it  has  no  sway. 


Polygamy 
and  Mono- 
gamy. 


FOR  example:  it  is  our  indolent 
custom  here  to  wed  but  one 
wife.  In  Turkey  our  custom  is 
the  exception,  and  there  it  is  more 
usual  to  wed  four.  Religion  hallows, 
shall  we  say,  'the  union,'  morality 
countenances  it,  and  it  might  be 
held  that  Nature  itself  is  on  its 
side.  Now,  arc  we  to  condemn  that 
polygamous  Turk  as  irreligious  or 
immoral?  It  is  probable  he  is  both, 
but  not  necessarily  because  he  has 
four  wives  and  we  only  one.  What 
we  have  to  realise  is  that  we  may  be 
more  irreligious  and  immoral  with 
our  one  than  he  with  his  four. 

The  Relative  Spirit  working  in 
some  might  therefrom  deduce  that 
chastity  of  living  is  a  mere  casual 
condition.  Morals,  we  have  been 
told,  are  matters  of  geography.  But 
that  would  be  a  superficial  deduction. 
The  question  is  of  essential  chastity 
of  life.  You  may  say,  very  properly, 
that  it  mitdit  be  harder  for  a  man 
to  be    spiritually    minded   with    four 


a  Literary  a^an 


wives  than  with  one,  that  monogamy 
is  a  higher  ideal  of  relationship  be- 
tween men  and  women.  This  one 
admits  ;  but  the  question  is  whether, 
relative  to  his  conditions,  his  matri- 
monial complexities,  that  Turk  does 
or  does  not  struggle  to  follow  the  law 
of  his  higher  nature.  And  that  is  the 
question  which  it  is  the  business  of 
the  Relative  Spirit  always  to  raise. 
It  is  our  guide  as  to  what  is  only 
of  provincial  and  what  of  universal 
importance  in  any  particular  custom 
or  law.  It  is  the  ruling  of  the 
Supreme  Courts  as  compared 
with  that  of  a  Justice 
of  the  Peace. 


THE  RE- 
LATIVE 
SPIRIT 


III 

WHAT    IS    SIN? 

IN  dealing  with  this  Relative  Spirit, 
I  have  practically  answered,  so 
far  as  I  am  able,  one  of  the  few 
ultimate  questions  which  that  spirit 
leaves  us  to  settle.  The  question  for 
our  forefathers  was  Pilate's  question 


What  is 

Truth?— the 

question  of 

the  Past. 


[8 


€bc  EUligion  of 


WHAT  IS 
SIN? 


— What  is  Truth  ?  That  we  may  be 
said  to  have  answered  —  relatively. 
We  might  say  that  truth  is  the  best 
possible  condition  in  a  given  set  of 
circumstances.  Relatively  speaking, 
we  have  answered  it  ;  ultimately 
speaking,  we  have  given  it  up. 


What  is 

Sin?— the 

question  for 

the  Present. 


-Mr.  Pater's 

'  Marius, 

the  Epicu- 


BUT  the  vital  question  of  the 
modern  world  is  What  is  Sin  f 
So  many  acts  our  fathers  have  con- 
demned are  seen  to  be  not  essentially, 
but  only  relatively,  evil.  Their  char- 
acter is  changing  with  changing 
conditions.  Is  all  'sin  '  thus  relative, 
or  is  there  such  a  thing  as  essential 
sin  ?  You  may  remember  how,  in 
Mr.  Walter  Pater's  beautiful  psycho- 
logical romance  of  Marius,  the  Epicu- 
rean, the  young  philosopher,  watching 
the  calm  demeanour  of  Marcus 
Aurelius  at  those  cruel  games  which 
the  wise  emperor  endured  because 
they  were  inevitable,  shrank  with 
horror  from  that  cold  acquiescence. 
Not  for  him  so  complete  a  triumph 
of  the  Relative  Spirit  as  that. 

'  Surely,'  exclaimed  his  soul,  'Surely 
evil  was  a  real  thing  ;  and  the  wise 


a  Literary  a^an 


19 


man  wanting  in  the  sense  of  it,  where 
not  to  have  been,  by  instinctive 
election,  on  the  right  side  was  to 
have  failed  in  life.'  That  is  how 
Marius  answered  our  question,  a  ques- 
tion which  a  man  must  more  or  less 
answer  for  himself:  'What  is  Sin?' 


what  is 

SIN? 


T 


HE  answer  to  it  necessitates 
another  question  :  Have  I,  or 
have  I  not,  a  lower  and  a  higher 
nature  ?  If  yes,  must  I  live  in  accord- 
ance with  the  promptings  of  my 
lower  or  my  higher?  That,  as  I 
conceive  it,  is  the  one  vital  question 
of  Religion.  Morality  answers  it  for 
us  in  some  measure.  Man  has  long 
seen  that  a  harmonious  social  exist- 
ence is  impossible  on  the  lines  of  the 
lower  nature.  On  the  coarser  appe- 
tites of  that  morality  has,  therefore, 
set  a  curb.  Though  a  part  answer, 
it  is  a  suggestive  one.  The  law  of 
the  higher  life  thus  prescribed  by  the 
merely  gregarious  instinct  of  man, 
followed  for  the  sake  of  our  fellow- 
men,  is  soon  seen  to  be  lovely  and 
pleasant  in  the  following  for  its 
own  sake ;  and  so  from  a  necessary 


Have  we  a 

Lower  and 
a  Higher 
Nature  ? 


Ci)C  Religion  of 


WHAT  IS 
SIN? 


condition  of  social  intercourse  flash 
the  intuition  that  such  living  has  a 
higher  sanction  and  end  :  That  not 
only  should  we  live  righteously  for 
the  sake  of  our  neighbour,  but  for 
the  sake  of  that  spark  of  God  which 
we  feel  ever  brightening  within  us. 

WHAT  then  is  Sin?  Is  it 
the  breaking  of  the  Mosaic 
Decalogue?  Is  it  the  disregarding 
of  conventional  moralities?  Oris  it 
something  less,  and  something  more? 
In  frankly  answering  this  question 
we  shall  yet  need  for  some  time  to 
come  to  observe  certain  reticences 
out  of  regard  to  the  sensibilities  of 
our  neighbours.  But  we  can  consult 
such  sensibilities  too  much,  and  truth 
is  well  rid  of  '  the  weaker  brethren.' 


UNDER  the  dispensation  that  is 
quickly  passing  many  perfectly 
religious  exercises  of  natural  function 
were  condemned  as  evil :  the  desire 
of  joy,  the  delight  of  affinities,  the 
satisfaction  of  vital  needs. 

The  Relative  Spirit,  however,  has 
taught  us  that  these  are  not  sins  but 


a  Literatp  e@an 


2  I 


only  may  be  under  certain  circum- 
stances ;  indeed  it  will  sometimes  hap- 
pen that  what  were  once  sins  under  the 
old  Regime  become  duties  under  the 
new  one.  Unduly  '  refined/  idealistic, 
anaemic  persons,  for  example,  are  all 
the  better  for  a  dip  in  good  gross 
earth,  a  plunge  in  the  Demiurgus 
cup ;  for  the  lower  nature  needs 
nutriment  just  as  much  as  the  higher, 
and  it  is  no  less  misleading  to  treat 
man  as  all  angel  than  it  is  to  treat 
him  as  all  beast.  Certain  tempera- 
ments are  to  be  trusted  with  any 
measure  of  such  nutriment,  others 
with  scarcely  any  at  all.  Each  man 
must  judge  for  himself. 

Indeed  the  question  What  is  Sin? 
must  in  every  case  be  answered  in 
accordance  with  the  relations  in- 
volved, and  the  necessities  of  the 
particular  temperament :  that  is,  by 
the  due  consideration  of  our  duty 
to  our  neighbours,  and  our  duty  to 
ourselves — which  are,  however,  both 
at  bottom  one  duty. 


what  is 

SIN? 

Old  Sins 
become 

New 
Duties. 


WHAT  IS 

SIN? 

A  tentativr 

definition 
of  Sin. 


Original 
Sin. 


Cf)e  IRelirjion  of 


GENERALLY    stated,    I     would 
define    sin    as   that   which    in 
any  time,  or  country,  or  under  w  hat- 
soever  conditions  or  outward  appear- 
ances, means  the  living  by  the  lower 
instead    of    the   higher    side   of    our 
natures.     We  cannot  tell  what  that 
higher  side   ultimately  signifies,  any 
more    than    we   can    tell    what    that 
lower  signifies.     We  only  know  that 
one  is  higher  and  one  is  lower — and 
that  it  is  the  evident  intention  of 
nature  that  we  should  live 
according  to  the  higher. 


IV 

WHAT    IS    PAIN? 

BUT,  it  may  be  said,  I  have  really 
begged  the  question,  eluded 
the  problem,  which  is  not  so  much 
of  Relative  Sin,  as  of  Original  Sin — 
in  other  words  the  immemorial  pro- 
blem   of   the    meaning    of    evil,  the 


a  Literary  a^an 


mystery  of  pain,  the  crux  of  theo- 
logy, the  darkest  mystery  of  life. 
Actually  the  mystery  of  joy  no  less 
eludes  us,  but  we  are  content  to 
leave  that,  because  it  squares  with 
our  optimistic  theories  of  the  uni- 
verse. We  explain  it  relatively 
by  saying  that  God  is  love.  But 
pain,  obviously,  militates  against  such 
theories,  and  raises  the  eternal  ques- 
tion, thus  expressed  by  Mansel  and 
quoted  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer : 
'  How  is  the  existence  of  evil  com- 
patible with  that  of  an  infinitely  per- 
fect Being ;  for  if  he  wills  it,  he  is 
not  infinitely  good  ;  and  if  he  wills 
it  not,  his  will  is  thwarted  and  his 
sphere  of  action  limited.' 

ONE  of  those  child's  questions — 
so  unanswerable  !  As  a  pre- 
liminary, we  can  only  say  that  no 
question  whatever  that  is  not  relative 
is  answerable.  Ultimate  pain  and 
ultimate  joy  are  alike  inscrutable. 
Doubtless  the  problem  of  pain  arises 
mainly  from  our  limited  anthropo- 
morphic conceptions  of  God,  the 
First   Cause,   the   Unknowable.     We 


?3 


WHAT  IS 
PAIN? 

The 

Mystery 
of  Joy. 


^4 


€!)C  Religion  of 


WHAT  is 
PAINT 

The  Que* 
ttatc  I 
too  much  in 
terms  of  our 

own  exig- 
ence. 


Concerning 

the  use 

throughout 

of  the  word 

God,  see 

PP-  74 
and  75. 


inevitably  figure  him  as  a  creature 
with  like  passions  and  senses  ami 
sentiments  as  ourselves.  We  say  that 
we,  his  poor  creatures,  would  not 
countenance  such  pain  as  we  see 
about  us ;  but  in  saying  this  we 
forget  that  we  arc  not  God,  that  we 
have  but  five  senses  and  three 
dimensions,  by  which  to  form  our 
judgments.  We  can  form  no  pos- 
sible conception  of  the  processes  of 
God,  for  the  simple  reason,  probably, 
that  we  are  a  part  of  them.  We 
hastily  judge  by  two  or  three  of  the 
conditions  within  our  grasp,  but  we 
might  as  well  assume  knowledge 
of  a  pattern  by  a  coloured  thread 
or  two,  or  the  design  of  the  firma- 
ment from  our  hole-and-corner  solar 
system. 


IT  is  idle  to  put  this  question  of 
pain  ultimately,  quite  idle  to  ask 
the  ultimate  explanation  of  much 
simpler  matters,  in  fact  of  anything 
in  the  world  simple  or  complex. 
Put  relatively,  there  is,  of  course, 
but  one  familiar  answer,  founded  on 
observation   of  the   working  of  pain 


a  Litctarp  ®an 


here :  that  it  is  but  a  process,  and 
must  be  judged  not  in  itself,  but  by- 
its  results.  Some  results  we  are 
able  to  see,  the  majority  we  cannot 
see,  and  our  only  possible  method 
from  those  results  that 
towards    those     that    are 


is  to  argue 
are    seen 


unseen. 

Before  we  arrive  at  any  such  dis- 
tant point,  however,  the  difficulties 
of  the  question  may  be  at  least 
reduced  by  a  careful  consideration 
of  facts  right  in  the  foreground. 

ONE  has  no  wish  glibly  to  ex- 
plain away  the  real  troubles 
of  life,  but  it  is  futile  to  deny  that 
they  are  immeasurably  intensified 
(i)  by  the  Sentimental  Spectator, 
and  (2)  by  our  habit  of  viewing  pain 
in  the  bulk.  The  sentimental  spec- 
tator is  a  person  of  exquisite  nerves. 
It  is  probable  that  the  sufferer  is 
not,  and  thus  we  might  make  a  scale 
showing  the  graduated  values  of  cer- 
tain sufferings  at  certain  points  of 
sensitiveness.  But,  suppose  a  sorrow 
befalling  the  most  highly  sensitive 
person.      Recently    a    friend    of    the 


25 


WHAT  IS 
PAIN? 

Pain  a 
process. 


The 

Sentimental 

Spectator. 


26 


Cbc  Religion  of 


WHAT  IS 
PAIN 


writer's  lost  a  devoted  husband  by 
a  sudden  and  violent  death.  It  was 
a  very  awful  and  heart-breaking 
thing.  One  would  not  have  been 
surprised  had  she  succumbed  beneath 
the  shock.  '  No,'  said  an  old  friend 
of  hers,  '  you  see,  she  is  a  woman  of 
many  interests.'  It  sounded  a  hard 
saying  at  first,  but  the  more  one 
reflects  upon  it,  how  valuable  does 
it  become !  She  was  '  a  woman  of 
many  interests ' — how  ?  By  reason 
of  that  very  sensibility  of  nature  for 
which  we,  her  friends,  had  feared.  It 
was  not  that  she  did  not  love  her 
husband,  with  that  love  indeed 
which  makes  the  world  a  temple, 
but,  as  I  say,  the  very  power  which 
made  her  capable  of  so  intense  an 
affection,  made  her  capable  of  inevit- 
able compensations  as  well.  The 
loss  was  ten  times,  but  the  com- 
pensations were  also  ten  times. 
In  this  way,  if  life  does  not  tem- 
per the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb, 
it  makes  what  wool  remains  the 
warmer. 


a  iltterarp  a^an 


27 


THEN,  too,  we  contemplate  pain 
too  much  in  the  bulk.  We 
speak  of  '  Whitechapel '  as  though 
there  was  not  a  happy  person  in  it. 

We  contemplate  pain  much  as  we 
contemplate  the  rainfall  in  a  weather- 
map.  That  inky  patch  represents 
Manchester,  we  say,  and  we  pity  the 
poor  Manchester  people  as  though 
all  the  rain  fell  at  once,  and  as 
though  every  inhabitant  of  the  town 
was  out  in  it,  without  umbrellas. 
We  forget  in  our  charitable  generali- 
sation that  Manchester  rises  every 
morning  with  at  least  hopes  of  a 
fine  day,  that  it  does  occasionally 
get  it,  that  it  has  patience  and 
umbrellas  for  wet  ones,  and  that  its 
occasional  fine  days  are  all  the  more 
welcome  for  their  scarcity.  So  with 
pain.  All  this  dark  bulk  of  misery 
is  divided  and  sub-divided  amongst 
countless  individuals.  Each  takes 
his  little  bit  of  pain  and  bears  it  in 
his  corner.  Moving  amongst  all  this 
army  of  darkness,  though  unseen  by 
us,  is  another  army  of  light,  of  love, 
of  courage. 


what  is 

PAIN? 

Pain  con- 
templated 
too  much  in 
the  bulk. 


28 


Cljc  IRclirjton  of 


WHAT  IS 

PAIN? 

Mi-.taken 
Pity. 


Hinton  on 
Pain. 


MUCH  of  our  pity  is  of  the 
same  kind  as  that  which 
pities  a  shoe-black  for  going  bare- 
footed, when  he,  bless  you,  would 
not  wear  a  pair  of  boots  if  you 
were  to  buy  them  for  him.  Indeed, 
nothing  seems  more  certain  than  the 
relativity  of  pain,  and  the  correlation 
of  joy  and  pain  is  a  commonplace. 
Moreover,  it  is  especially  important  to 
remember  what,  in  a  little  book  on 
The  Mystery  of  Pain,  the  philosophi- 
cal value  of  which  may  be  overlooked 
through  its  unfortunate  theological 
terminology,  James  Hinton  continu- 
ally insists  upon  :  that  pain  borne  for 
the  love  of  another,  the  pain  of  self- 
sacrifice,  is  a  positive  joy  ;  and  that 
also  many  of  our  physical  plea- 
sures, such  as  a  cold  bath,  involve 
a  certain  amount  of  pain,  as,  so  to 
say,  their  fulcrum.  To  die  for  each 
other  has  been  the  immemorial  sum- 
mum  bonum  of  lovers,  to  '  die  for 
Christ'  the  sanctifying  privilege  of 
martyrs  ;  and  is  there  any  example 
more  familiar,  more  significant,  than 
that  of  the  mother,  who  forgetteth 
straight   the   pain    that   she    had    in 


a  Lzterarp  a^an 


her  joy  that  a  man  is  born  into  the 
world. 


in 


thing. 


BUT,  some  one  will  object, 
itself  pain  is  an  evil 
'In  itself!'  It  is  impossible  to 
conceive  anything  'in  itself — inde- 
pendent of  relations,  of  antecedents 
and  consequences.  Pain  has  no 
existence  without  the  sufferer,  and 
sufferers  are  not  all  agreed  upon  the 
matter. 

It  is  customary  to  regard  rheuma- 
tism as  an  evil,  yet  one  has  heard 
pious  folk  thank  God  for  their  rheu- 
matism, because  it  had  taught  them 
what  nothing  else  could — patience 
and  forbearance;  unconsciously  illus- 
trating Mr.  Meredith's  great  apo- 
thegm :  '  there  is  nothing  the  body 
suffers  that  the  soul  may  not  profit 
by.'  Yet,  you  persist,  rheumatism 
is  none  the  less  a  bad  thing.  How 
so  ?  Processes  are  to  be  judged 
by  their  results.  If  rheumatism 
is  found  to  make  me  a  better  man, 
can  I  say  that  rheumatism  is  a 
bad  thing  ?  Rheumatism  does  not 
exist   impersonally.       It   exists  only 


29 


WHAT  IS 
PAIN? 


•In 

itself  !— 
an  impos- 
sible con- 
ception. 


The 

Discipline 

of  Pain. 


■J* 


WHAT  IS 

i\in? 
The 

Sufferer 

the  Real 

Authority. 


Cijc  Bclirjion  of 

ill  relation  to  certain,  much-to-be- 
pitied,  individuals,  and  if  some  such 
are  able  to  say  that  it  has  helped 
rather  than  harmed  them  —  surely 
the  testimony  of  the  brave  is  as 
good  as  that  of  the  coward.  Why 
should  we  pay  heed  so  exclu- 
sively to  the  coward's  statement  of 
life? 


The 
Ministry 
of  Pain. 


Mr.  George 
Meredith. 


THIS  is  a  rough  illustration  of 
what  a  large  proportion  of 
the  greatest  men  and  women  in  all 
ages  have  regarded  as  the  ministry 
of  pain — pain  as  the  cleansing  fire. 
Such  is  still  the  courageous  attitude 
to-day  of  men  so  divergent  in  mind 
as  Mr.  George  Meredith  and  Mr. 
Coventry  Patmore.  Mr.  Meredith,  in 
his  robust  way,  sees  pain  everywhere 
about  him  as  the  crucible  in  which 
life  is  refined,  the  process  by  which 

'  From  flesh  unto  spirit  man  grows 
Even  here  on  the  sod  under  sun.' 

Any  one  who  cares  enough  for  his 
salvation  to  thread  the  thorny  ob- 
scurities of  Mr.  Meredith's  'A  Faith 
on    Trial/    will  find    in    it    the    most 


a  mterarp  apan 


spiritually  helpful  of  all  recent  poems. 
There  is  no  modern  'thinker'  pro- 
founder  than  he,  no  one  who  has 
faced  more  spectres  of  the  mind. 
Yet  he  comes  out  of  all  his  think- 
ing the  strongest  of  the  apostles  of 
faith. 


WHAT  IS 
PAIN? 


MR.  PATMORE  even  formu- 
lates a  mystical  luxury  of 
pain,  after  the  ecstatic  manner  of 
the  old  saints,  and,  personifying  it, 
prays  for 

.  .  .  the  learned  spirit  without  attaint 

That  does  not  faint, 

But  knows  both  how  to  have  thee  and  to  lack, 

And  ventures  many  a  spell, 

Unlawful  but  for  them  that  love  so  well, 

To  call  thee  back.' 


Mr. 
Coventry 
Pat  more. 


WHO  has  not  been  heartened  by 
Browning's  cold-water  cure : 
'  When  pain  ends,  gain  ends  too '  ; 
and,  if  the  reader  likes  him  better, 
here  is  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  on  the 
subject.  Speaking  of,  so  to  say,  the 
scientific  religious  man  as  opposed 
to  the  conventionally  religious,  he 
says :    '  Convinced  as  he  is   that   all 


Browning. 


Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer. 


32 


CI)C  Religion  of 


WHAT  is 

PAIN; 


punishment,  as  wc  sec  it  wrought 
out  in  the  order  ot  nature,  is  but 
a  disguised  beneficence,  there  will 
perhaps  escape  from  him  an  an^ry 
condemnation  of  the  belief  that 
punishment  is  a  Divine  venge- 
ance, and  that  Divine  vengeance  is 
eternal.' 


Schopen- 
hauer and 
Spinoza. 


BUT  hereon  some  one  produces 
Schopenhauer,  and,  as  his 
trump-card,  plays  Spinoza.  No  philo- 
sopher so  readily  explains  himself 
as  Schopenhauer.  His  philosophy 
was  simply  the  formulation  of  his 
own  special  disease,  the  expres- 
sion of  his  own  ineffably  petty  and 
uncomfortable  disposition.  He  was 
a  small  philosopher,  with  a  great 
literary  gift.  Spinoza,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  a  very  different  person  :  he 
was  a  great  philosopher,  with  a  com- 
paratively small  literary  gift.  But, 
says  the  Spinozist,  according  to  him 
pain  was  an  unmistakable  evil.  Joy 
was  the  vitalising,  fructifying  power. 
Let  us  hear  Spinoza  himself.  Says  he 
in  his  EtJiics:  'By  pleasure  I  shall 
therefore     hereafter     understand     an 


a  Literary  8@an 


affection  whereby  the  mind  passes  to 
a  greater  perfection  ;  and  by  pain  an 
affection  whereby  it  passes  to  a  lesser 
perfection.'  Could  anything  be  more 
to  the  purpose  of  our  argument? 
Spinoza's  English  commentator,  Sir 
Frederick  Pollock,  seems  to  me  con- 
fusing in  his  interpretation  of  this 
passage.  In  one  case  he  implies  that 
Spinoza  meant  actual,  immediate, 
sensual  pain — pain  'in  itself — and 
in  another  he  says,  '  we  here  use  the 
terms  good  and  evil  as  denoting  the 
quality,  not  of  the  sensation  as  such 
(for  that  would  only  be  to  say  that 
pleasure  is  pleasure  and  pain  is  pain), 
but  of  the  events  and  relations  in  the 
organism  immediately  indicated  by 
the  sensation.' 

However,  there  are  Spinoza's  own 
words,  and  if  we  have  misinterpreted 
them,  after  all,  humanity  does  not 
stand  or  fall  by  one  of  its  great  men, 
and  we  may,  if  we  find  it  necessary, 
put  Spinoza  aside  in  favour  of  others 
even  greater,  who  have  speculated 
upon  life  no  less  profoundly  than  he. 


33 


WHAT  IS 
PAIN? 


WHAT  IS 
PAINT 

All 
Theories 

relative. 


The 
Qui. 
at  it-. 


Cbe  Religion  of 


IN  this  matter  of  pain,  as  in  every, 
other  under  the  sun,  it  is  theory 
against  theory,  and  we  shall  each 
accept  that  alone  which  suits  our 
temperament.  Each,  at  the  same 
moment,  is  relatively  true  and  rela- 
tively false. 

HOWEVER,  it  is  always  best  to 
put  a  question  at  its  worst. 
Let  us  suppose  pain  as  an  unmiti- 
gated evil — and  allowing  me,  for  the 
sake  of  emphasis,  to  speak  in  theo- 
logical terms — let  us  thence  deduce 
that,  whether  God  is  all-merciful  or 
not,  He  is  evidently  not  all-powerful. 
Let  us  embrace  the  heresy  of  the 
Manicheans,  and  hold  that  the  world 
is  at  the  mercy  of  two  rival  dynasties 
of  good  and  evil — God  and  Satan. 

Well!  what  if  the  fate  of  man  ulti- 
mately hangs  on  the  fortune  of  battle, 
on  some  celestial  Armageddon,  why 
should  we  be  afraid  ?  Why  should 
we  so  faint-heartedly  conclude  that 
God  will  lose  the  battle?  He  has 
hurled  Satan  out  of  heaven  once,  and 
shall  He  not  hurl  him  forth  again  ? 
And  even  if,  impious  thought,  Satan 


a  Literary  apan 


35 


should  triumph,  are  we  not  men,  can 
we  not  face  all  the  pains  of  hell  he 
shall  devise?  If  he  slay  us  outright, 
all  is  forgotten  —  if  he  keep  us  in 
torment,  shall  we  not  some  day  raise 
God's  banner  again  ? 


WHAT  IS 
PAIN? 


THE  truth  is  that  our  modern  pes- 
simism means  but  two  things  : 
cowardice  and  selfishness.     The  self- 
ish— it  is  a  merciful   provision  —  al- 
ways, in  the  long-run,  suffer  the  most, 
though  it  may  often  seem  otherwise. 
And  no  observing  man  will  deny  that 
this  is,  comparatively,  an  age  of  cow- 
ardice.    At  any  rate  it  is  an  age  of 
anaesthetics.      Those    who,   like    Mr. 
Henley,    chant    '  The    Song    of    the 
Sword,'  are  at  least  so  far  right ;  and 
we  may  well  pray  for  the  spirit  of  our 
brave  forefathers,  who  went  to 
battle  with  stouter  hearts  than 
we  take  to  the  dentist. 


Pessim- 
ism  = 
Cowardice 
and  Selfish- 
ness. 


An  Age  of 
Cowardice. 


36 


FREE- 
WILL 


A 
Postulate. 


Conditions 
if  the  Will. 


Che  Religion  of 


B 


F  R  E  E   W  I  L  L 

EFORE  discussing  two  other 
hackneyed  questions  which  still 
arise,  or  at  least  are  always  raised,  in 
regard  to  religion,  allow  me  to  postu- 
late :  that  nowhere  more  than  in  re- 
ligion is  it  wise  to  do  without  as 
much  as  we  can.  One  pcrennially 
discussed  question  is  that  of  Free- 
will.' Is  man  '  a  free  agent,'  or  is  he 
'a  machine'? — or  whatever  metaphor 
of  passivity  the  disputant  may  prefer. 


F 


REE-WILL,'  I  venture  to  sug- 
gest, is  one  of  those  dogmas 
with  which  mankind  can  very  well  dis- 
pense. For,  when  one  considers  that 
will-power,  like  any  other,  is  a  certain 
fixed  quantity,  at  most  a  certain  fixed 
potentiality,  within  us,  that  evidently, 
therefore,  wills  are  not  equal,  and  that 
to  say  '  use  your  will'  to  a  man  who 
has  been  obviously  born  without  one, 
is  to  misunderstand  his  case  ;  when 
one  considers  too  that  will  is  depen- 


a  Ltteratp  qpan 


37 


dent  on  other  qualities  of  the  nature, 
and  upon  external  influences,  to 
quicken  or  retard  it,  it  is  hard  to 
see  that  we  have  any  more  free-will 
than,  apparently,  a  flower. 

You  say — But  it  is  in  your  power  to 
avoid  this  or  that  course.  Not  neces- 
sarily. At  any  rate,  I  probably  want 
to  avoid  it,  my  will  struggles  to  avoid 
it,  but  the  other  forces  of  my  nature 
are  too  strong  for  my  will,  and  they 
have  their  way.  You  say — Had  you 
struggled  a  little  more !  Ah !  but  I 
could  not.  It  is  an  easy  sum,  a  cal- 
culation in  simple  proportion.  You 
will  resist  the  temptation  as  long  as 
your  will  lasts,  and  when  it  is  used  up 
you  will  give  in  ;  or  if  your  will  hap- 
pens to  be  stronger  than  the  tempta- 
tion, you  will  not  give  in. 

Is  not  this,  one  is  always  asked,  a 
dangerous  doctrine?  Might  it  not 
paralyse  effort?  Does  it  not  make 
men  simply  like  clockwork?  But 
will  the  clockwork  stop  working 
because  you  tell  it  that  it  has  been 
wound  up,  and  is  not,  as  it  imagines, 
going  of  itself?  Besides,  one  does  not 
deny  that  the  will  may  be  strength- 


FREE- 
WILL 


The 
'  Clock- 
work ' 
Objection. 


QAi 


[8 


FREE 
WILL 


Will 
Batteries. 


Matters 

outside  our 

Will. 


Che  LUlicjion  of 


ened  by  influences  from  without.  In 
those  is  the  only  hope  of  the  weak 
will,  but  whether  it  shall  encounter 
those  influences  depends  either  on 
accident  or  on  the  possibility  of  its 
being  strong  enough  to  seek  tonics 
for  its  weakness. 

Great  books  are  among  such  bat- 
teries for  the  recharging  of  the  will 
— and  Emerson's  '  Essay  on  Self- 
Reliance'  is,  of  course,  a  well-known 
preparation  of  phosphates. 

WHEN  we  battle  so  for  free- 
will, we  forget  how  large  a 
proportion  of  our  life  is  outside  our 
will,  which  yet  we  accept  without  a 
murmur.  Obviously  our  existence, 
to  start  with,  is  beyond  our  control. 
Our  qualities  are  as  inexorably  fixed 
for  us  as  our  stature.  And  then  the 
friends  we  meet,  who,  as  we  say, 
change  the  whole  course  of  our  lives, 
the  man  or  woman  we  marry.  We 
are  admittedly  at  the  mercy  of  so- 
called  chance  in  these  tremendously 
important  matters.  Where  is  the 
logic  of  drawing  the  line  at  our  own 
personal    free-will  ?     For    how    these 


a  Ltterarp  Q^an 


persons  or  various  accidents  may 
affect  us  is  not  a  matter  for  our  de- 
cision ;  it  will  depend  on  the  relative 
strength  of  individualities  and  on  all 
the  conditions.  This  or  that  new 
friend  influences  me  for  good  in  pro- 
portion as  my  nature  is  open  to  good 
impressions  and  no  more  ;  and  the 
fact  of  our  meeting — like  my  nature 
— is  an  accident ;  in  other  words,  a 
matter  entirely  outside  my  control. 
It  is  simply  a  problem  of  human 
chemistry. 

WHAT  then  have  we  to  live 
for  ?  Is  all  our  aspiration 
and  struggle  a  mockery  ?  Not  at 
all.  Aspiration  and  struggle  are 
processes  towards  the  development 
of  our  nature  to  the  limit  of  its  ex- 
pansion. Life  is  a  reality  governed 
by  illusions,  and  '  free-will '  is  one  of 
the  illusions  that  govern  it. 

What  have  we  to  live  for?  This 
question,  like  almost  every  other  that 
teases  the  mind  of  man,  has  its  raison 
d'etre  entirely  in  that  primitive  ego- 
tism which  makes  man  the  measure 
of  the  Universe.      The  inheritor   of 


39 


FREE- 
WILL 


What 

have  we  to 

live  for '? 


The 

Ejotism  of 

Man. 


4o 


Cbc  Religion  of 


FREE- 
WILL 


Humility 
the  key  to 

many 
mysteries. 


an  arrogant  legend  of  his  godlike 
origin  and  prerogatives,  he  sees  about 
him  laws  in  constant  operation  that 
pay  no  heed  to  his  pretensions. 
Taught  to  believe  that  the  world  was 
made  to  please  him,  and  finding  it 
sometimes  failing  to  do  so,  he  grows 
puzzled  and  angry.  If  he  could  but 
realise  that  his  ideas  of  dominion  are 
absurd  fancies,  such  as  some  African 
chief  might  cherish  of  his  being  sole 
imperator  of  the  world  ;  if  he  could 
but  take  up  his  position  as  the  ser- 
vant instead  of  the  lord  of  creation,  as 
but  one  humble  link  in  the  mysteri- 
ous chain  of  being,  as  but  one  child 
born  to  the  fatherhood  of  God,  he 
would  smile  to  see  how  simple  all 
his  complexities  would  suddenly  be- 
come. 

When  we  are  no  longer  called  upon 
to  explain  Nature  in  accordance  with 
the  desires  of  one  of  its  creatures, 
when  we  no  longer  stand  in  the 
centre  of  things,  but  humbly  take 
our  place  in  that  vast  circumference 
whose  unknown  centre  is  God,  we 
shall  see  with  different  eyes.  Then 
maybe  we  shall  realise  the  deep  mean- 


a  Ltterarp  apan 


ing  of  the  'superstitious'  old  text, 
and  count  it  enough  explanation  of 
the  life  of  man  to  say  that  it  exists 
1  to  the  praise  and  glory  of  God ' — 
to  the  working  out  of  His  indefinable 
purposes  ;  that  we  are  the  servants 
of  His  household,  the  soldiers  of  His 
army,  and  that  the  pay  is  life ! 
Had  He  willed  it  this  glorious  gift 
had  never  been  ours.  We  might 
have  still  slept  on  unsentient,  un- 
organised, in  the  trodden  dust.  But 
He  has  raised  us  up  and  endowed 
us  with  this  wondrous  framework  of 
subtle  vibrating  being,  that  no  tittle 
of  the  joy  and  beauty  of  His  world 
should  escape  us. 

ME  AN  W  H I LE,  however,  though 
the  astronomy  of  Copernicus 
is  taught  in  our  schools,  the  world 
still  remains  Ptolemaist.  We  still 
practically  believe  that  the  whole  of 
the  firmament  is  an  immense  cande- 
labra for  lighting  this  bit  of  an  earth  ; 
that  it  revolves  round  us  instead  of 
our  revolving  with  it  round  some  in- 
conceivably remote  centre.  We  are 
accustomed  to  talk  as  though  God  is 


4i 


FREE- 
WILL 


'  To  the 

praise  and 

glory  of 

God.' 


The  World 
still  Ptole- 
maist in 
practice, 
though 
Copernican 
in  theory. 


4^ 


FRKK- 
WILL 


Life  a 

free  boon. 


'Counting 
our 

mercies.' 


Cfjc  Reliction  of 


our  servant,  and  that  His  laws  mu  t 
needs  square  with  our  desires.  We  are 
silly  enough  to  talk  of  our  rights.  Man 
has  no  rights  in  regard  to  God.  He 
has  only  mercies.  He  exists  for  God, 
and  not  God  for  him.  The  incor- 
rigible presumption  and  irreverence 
of  man  !  It  never  seems  to  occur  to 
him  that  the  joy  and  good  things  of 
life,  which  he  undoubtedly  possesses, 
have  come  to  him  all  unasked  and 
un worked  for — a  free  boon.  It  is  as 
though,  invited  to  a  great  feast  as  a 
favour,  we  should  quarrel  with  the  host 
because  he  had  not  consulted  us  as 
to  the  menu,  which,  nevertheless,  was 
seen  to  please  greatly  the  majority 
of  the  guests.  Our  rights  !  our  griev- 
ances— against  God  !  When  we  have 
given  due  thanks  for  our  mercies : 
for  the  mere  sky  and  sunshine,  for 
the  wonder  of  love,  for  the  miracle  of 
beauty,  for  the  humblest  joys  of 
sensation — then  it  will  be  time  to 
talk  about  those. 

IF  it  appears  that  man  has  actually 
no  say  in  his  life,  that  he  is  but 
clockwork,  well,  it  is  clockwork   full 


a  Literarp  ^an 


43 


of  sweet  chimes.  Or  let  us  say  that 
man  is  like  a  flower  planted  here  by 
God  to  grow  according  to  His  will 
and  for  some,  to  us,  undivinable  end, 
just  as  we  plant  daffodils  in  our 
garden  plots  and  never  tell  them 
why.  At  all  events,  one  thing  is 
certain  :  that,  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
says,  '  God  has  not  made  a  single 
creature  who  can  understand  Him  '  ; 
and  another  thing  is  no  less  sure,  that 
it  is  not  to  the  arrogant  spirit  of 
modern  inquiry  that  He  will  ever  be 
revealed. 


FREE- 
WILL 


BUT  to  return  in  conclusion  to 
free-will,  is  it  to  be  doubted 
that  we  have  far  more  to  gain  by 
losing  than  keeping  it  ?  Our  precious 
'  individualities '  are  curtailed,  it  is 
true,  but  in  the  next  chapter  I  shall 
venture  to  suggest  that  we  exag- 
gerate our  regard  for  those  ;  and 
what  we  gain  in  their  place  is,  to 
my  thinking,  considerably  more  im- 
portant :  a  very  precious  gain  in 
charity  to  our  fellows,  in  consola- 
tion to  ourselves. 

We   already    see   the   humanising 


The  loss  of 

'  Free-will 

really  a 

gain. 


44 


Cbe  Religion  of 


FREE- 
WILL 


influence  of  the  more  scientific  view 
in  the  adoption  by  public  opinion  of 
such   phrases    as   '  homicidal    mania,' 
'erotomania,'     'dipsomania':     terms 
which    obviously    imply   that    man's 
1  sins '    arc     not    to    be     visited    as 
'  crimes,'   but  charitably  regarded  as 
the    painful    operation    of    diseased 
functions,     independently     trans- 
mitted, and  more  than  enough 
punishment  in  themselves. 


Familiar 
notions 
on  the 

subject. 


V  I 
THE    HEREAFTER 

THE  question  of  'the  life  here- 
after' is  by  many  regarded  as 
the  most  serious  problem  of  religion. 
They  tell  us  that  a  future  life  is  a 
necessary  completion  of  this  ;  that  in 
such  a  life  alone  can  the  injustice  of 
this  one  be  corrected,  the  forces  set 
working  in  this  be  developed  to  their 
logical  results.  At  the  same  time 
they  postulate  that  future  life  as  a 
state  of  perfection.  Surely  these  three 
statements  are  incompatible.  A  life 
that   would    be   the  working   out  to 


a  JLiteratp  span 


45 


their  conclusion,  supposing  we  can 
imagine  conclusion,  of  the  forces  of 
this  one  would  not  be  a  perfect  life, 
as  we  understand  it,  but  simply  a  re- 
production of  this.  Moreover,  Nature 
does  not  bind  herself  to  bring  all 
sowings  to  harvest.  It  is  one  of  her 
most  familiar  mysteries  that  she  is 
able  to  waste  and  yet  want  not.  No 
spendthrift  may  rival  the  lavishness 
of  Nature,  and  the  Eastern  queen  who 
drank  dissolved  pearl  as  a  liqueur 
was  economical  in  comparison. 


THE 
HERE- 
AFTER 


FIRST  let  us  ask :  not  whether 
the  future  life,  the  survival  of 
personality  after  death,  be  true  or  not, 
but  whether  we  really  care  about  it 
so  much  as  we  imagine.  In  religion, 
we  have  said,  it  is  especially  wise 
to  do  without  as  much  as  we  can. 
Can  we  then  do  without  the  idea  of  a 
future  life,  the  immortality  of  the  Ego, 
or  is  it  a  necessity  of  our  life  here  ? 

Let  us  first  bring  the  question  of 
personality  into  the  foreground  of  our 
present  existence,  and  ask  ourselves 
if  we  do  not  exaggerate  its  value  to 
us  here  and  now. 


Do  we 

really  care 
about  Im- 
mortality? 


46 


THE 

HI 
At  I 


A  theory 
of  Friend- 
ship. 


€l)C  Religion  of 


FOR  example,  we  say  that  we  love 
our  friends  'for  themselves.'  Do 
\vc  mean  by  that  that  we  love  them,  so 
to  say,  in  the  lump,  bad  and  good  to- 
gether ;  or  that  we  love  them  because 
of  their  possession  of  certain  qualities 
valued  by  us,  for  the  sake  of  which, 
possibly,  we  are  content  to  overlook 
certain  other  qualities  not  attractive 
to  us,  perhaps  actually  repellent  ? 
Suppose  we  lose  that  friend,  but 
shortly  after  meet  another  person 
who  possesses  like  qualities.  Do  we 
feel  quite  the  old  need  for  the  old 
friend,  or  have  we  not  practically 
found  him  again  in  the  new  one? 
I  do  not  forget  the  power  of  asso- 
ciation, but  association  is  a  quick- 
growing  ivy,  and  will  shortly  grow  up 
about  the  new  friendship  as  the  old. 
And,  of  course,  we  may  not  make  a 
second  such  acquaintance,  but  the 
chances  are  that  we  shall. 


IF  you  answer  that  the  new  friend 
will  probably  in  course  of  time 
take  the  place  of  the  old  one,  then  it 
is  clear  that  it  is  the  qualities  of  both, 
not   as   we   say  their  individualities, 


a  JLiterarp  e@an 


47 


their  Egos,  that  we  value.  Actually 
we  do  not  love  either  '  for  themselves,' 
but  for  their  good-nature,  their  wit, 
their  beauty,  or  whatever  their  quali- 
ties may  be ;  and  those  qualities  are 
to  be  met  with  over  and  over  again, 
possibly  in  still  more  satisfying  har- 
monies. Thus  we  have  not  to  wait  to 
meet  our  old  friends  again  in  heaven, 
we  meet  them  again  already  on  earth 
— in  the  new  ones.  Nor  does  such 
a  view  abolish  the  noble  virtue  of  con- 
stancy ;  for  what  generous  spirit  can 
lightly  forget  the  men  and  women 
who  have,  for  however  short  a  time, 
been  to  them  the  vessels  of  the  divine 
revelations  of  life.  If  we  are  constant 
to  great  qualities,  we  cannot  be  incon- 
stant to  their  possessors. 


THE 
HERE- 
AFTER 


ONE  finds  the  same  fallacy  of  per- 
sonality in  regard  to  places  we 
live  in,  and  indeed  more  or  less  in 
regard  to  everything  with  which  we 
are  for  any  time  habitually  associated. 
We  return  for  our  holidays  to  one  par- 
ticular place  again  and  again,  in  fancy 
attributing  to  it  a  certain  exceptional 
character ;    yet   if  we  are  prevented 


The  fallacy 
of '  Per- 
sonality. ' 


48 


Cbc  Ecligion  of 


THE 

HERE- 
AFTER 


going  there  and  have  to  make  trial  of 
another  place,  we  soon  find  that  it  was 
not,  after  all,  the  idiosyncrasies  of  our 
old  resort,  but  merely  the  qualities  it 
had  in  common  with  most  other  such 
places — the  sky,  the  trees,  the  grass, 
the  sea,  which  are  good  wherever  we 
find  them. 

Do  we  love  a  flower  '  for  itself,'  for 
its  Ego,  or  for  its  charms  of  form  or 
colour,  which  any  one  of  its  species 
possesses  in  perhaps  an  even  greater 
degree  ? 

Of  course,  the  existence  of  the  Ego 
is  an  obvious  fact,  whether  we  regard 
it  as  inhabiting  the  body  or  simply  as 
including  it  :  but  what  I  would  try 
to  show  is  that  we  exaggerate  its 
importance  to  us. 


The 

alleged 

precious- 

ness 
of '  Per- 
sonality.' 


WE  often  hear  people  say  that  so 
precious  is  personality  that 
the  meanest  creature  living  would  not, 
if  it  could,  change  places  with  the 
highest.  All  I  can  say  then  is — more 
fool  it !  Such  general  statements  are 
mainly  fallacies,  and,  for  my  part,  I 
can  but  think  that,  far  from  our 
individualities  being    so   precious   to 


a  JLiterarp  a^an 


49 


us,  many  of  us — if  we  were  wise — 
would  welcome  a  general  return  to 
the  melting-pot  in  the  hope  of  a 
better  start  next  time. 


THE 
HERE- 
AFTER 


ANOTHER  favourite  reflection 
on  this  subject  is  :  that,  if  there 
be  no  hereafter,  all  the  precious  spirit- 
ual and  intellectual  acquirements  of 
our  lives  have  been  stored  for  nothing  : 
our  character  been  laboriously  built 
up,  our  sensibilities  exquisitely  at- 
tuned, to  no  end. 


The  Waste- 
fulness of 
Death. 


BUT  how  so?  Have  they  not 
been  in  full  operation  for  a 
lifetime  ?  'Tis  a  pity  truly  that  the 
old  fiddle  should  be  broken  at  last ; 
but  then  for  how  many  years  has  it 
not  been  discoursing  most  excellent 
music.  We  naturally  lament  when  an 
old  piece  of  china  is  some  sure  day 
dashed  to  pieces ;  but  then  for  how  long 
a  time  has  its  beauty  been  delighting 
and  refining  those,  maybe  long  dead, 
who  have  looked  upon  it ! 

If  there  were  no  possibility  of  more 
such  fiddles,  more  such  china,  their 
loss    would    be    an    infinitely    more 


Life  not 

necessarily 

futile. 


THE 

HERE- 

\i  i  i:r 


Omar 
Kha 


'  Irrepar- 
able loss'  of 
a  learned 
Man. 


Cbc  Religion  of 

serious  matter  ;  but  on  this  the  sad- 
glad  old  Persian  admonishes  us  : 

' .  .  .  fear  not  lest  Existence,  closing  your 
Account  and  mine,  should  know  the  like- 
no  more  ; 
The  Eternal  S;iki  from  the  bowl  has  pour'd 
Millions  of  Bubbles  likeus,and  shall  pour.' 

Nature  ruthlessly  tears  up  her  replicas 
age  after  age,  but  she  is  slow  to  destroy 
the  plates.  Her  lovely  forms  are  all 
safely  housed  in  her  memory,  and 
beauty  and  goodness  sleep  secure  in 
her  heart,  in  spite  of  all  the  arrows  of 
death. 

BESIDES,  in  many  cases,  we 
strangely  misconceive,  and 
overvalue,  the  acquirements  of  our 
existence.  When  a  learned  man  dies, 
for  example,  we  hear  the  newspapers 
bewail  the  amount  of  learning  that 
has  gone  with  him.  To  think  of  all 
that  Latin  and  Greek  and  Hebrew, 
Egyptology  and  numismatics  and 
conchology  and  what  not,  run  to 
waste  in  the  grave  !  If  he  could  only 
have  taken  it  all  with  him  !  But,  then, 
supposing  a  hereafter,  what  possible 
use  would  he  find  for  numismatics  in 


a  Lttetarp  ^an 


heaven  ?  So  frequently  we  lament 
the  leaving  behind  upon  earth  of  gifts 
and  gains  which  have  no  conceivable 
value  elsewhere.  And  in  regard  to  the 
loss  sustained  by  his  countrymen  in  the 
death  of  that  learned  man,  is  it  not  an 
axiom  that  such  people  always  '  leave 
the  world  better  than  they  found  it '  ? 

But,  supposing  that  he  has  not 
bequeathed  his  learning  in  his  own 
books,  it  either  exists  already  in  the 
books  of  other  men  or  in  the  actual 
facts  of  which  it  could  be  no  more  than 
observation.  And  even  supposing  it 
all  lost — which  is  impossible — is  it  so 
very  great  a  matter  ?  Learned  men 
are  merely  catalogues  to  the  library 
of  the  universe,  and  there  are  forces 
constantly  engaged  in  compiling  such 
catalogues. 

All  a  man  earns  here  he  can  spend 
here,  and  if  he  chooses  to  hoard  it,  it 
is  his  own  affair,  and  probably  no 
great  loss  to  us.  For  no  man  that 
has  anything  of  real  ultimate  value 
to  his  fellows  can  keep  it  to  himself. 
He  may  withhold  his  learning,  and 
bury  his  wealth  ;  but  his  character — 
his  love,  his  strength,  his  tenderness  ; 


THE 
HERE- 
AFTER 


Cfic  Ucligion  of 


Tin. 

HERE- 
AFTER 


these,  the  only  gifts  worth  consider- 
ing, he  cannot  hide,  and  the  operation 
of  them  he  is  powerless  to  limit. 


The  Here- 

Contpen- 
sation. 


The  Braver 

View. 


BUT,  you  remind  me, — what  of 
those  unhappy  people  to  whom 
reference  was  made  at  the  beginning 
of  our  inquiry,  those  who  have  had 
but  a  poor  show  in  life,  been  unfor- 
tunate and  oppressed  ?  To  consider 
them  is  but  to  reopen  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  the  mystery  of  pain.  I  can 
only  repeat  that  we  are  not  the  best 
judges  of  other  people's  joy  and  sor- 
row, and  that  those  we  pity  are  very 
likely  not  so  badly  off  as  they  seem 
from  our  point  of  view.  For  the  most 
unlucky  the  proportion  of  joy  in  life 
is  probably  greater  than  we  usually 
admit,  and  it  is  surely  a  mistake  to 
measure  joy  and  pain  by  duration  in 
time.  Then,  some  natures  are  more 
grateful  than  others.  While  the  weak, 
perhaps,  always  believe  in  a  hereafter, 
the  brave  have  faith  in  their  past. 
They  do  not  forget  that  they  too 
had  once  their  purple  hour,  and  find 
courage  to  bear  the  subsequent  pain 
in  the  thought  of  it.     Offer  them  their 


a  Litcrarp  ^an 


lives  over  again  and  they  would  pro- 
bably accept  them.  Theirs  is  the 
manly,  grateful  temper  of  him  in  Mr. 
Davidson's  poem,  who  said  : 

I  think  thai  I  am  still  in  Nature's  debt, 
Scorned,  disappointed,  starving,  bankrupt, 

old, 
Because  I  loved  a  lady  in  my  youth, 
And  was  beloved  in  sooth.' 

BESIDES,  if,  in  supposed  justice, 
we  assume  a  future  life  for  the 
sake  of  those  '  who  fail'd  under  the 
heat  of  this  life's  day,'  it  seems  hard  to 
imagine  them  any  better  off.  Even 
for  any  consideration  it  is  impossible 
to  conceive  a  toy  heaven,  with  all  set 
right ;  and  supposing  that  we  postu- 
late cycles  of  existence  after  the  Bud- 
dhist dream,  would  the  weak  in  this 
life  be  the  strong  in  the  next? 

Moreover,  lovely  as  that  dream  is, 
I  fancy  that  its  appeal  is  most  to  the 
happy.  For  the  happy  life  seems  so 
good  that  they  would  it  might  go  on 
indefinitely  through  ever-ascending 
circles  ;  for  the  unhappy,  may  be,  it 
seems  so  sad  that  they  would  give 
thanks    to    have  done  with    it,  once 


53 


THE 
HERE- 
AFTER 


Mr.  John 

Davidson'. 

'  Fleet 

Street 
Eclogues.' 


The 
Hereafter 
a  belief  for 
the  Happy 
rather 
than  the 
Unhappy. 


54 


Cbc  Religion  of 


Till 
HERE- 
AFTER 


'  The 

Garden  of 

Proserpine.' 


and  for  all.     Anything  short  of  the 
perfect    life,    or    the    perfect    death, 
seems    too    great    a    risk  ;    and    you 
could  bring   them   no   gladder  new 
than  Mr.  Swinburne's — 

'  That  no  life  lives  for  ever, 
That  dead  men  rise  up  never, 
That  even  the  weariest  river 

Winds  somewhere  safe  to  sea.' 


I  HAVE  not  felt  it  necessary  here- 
to traverse  the  various  familiar 
arguments  for  and  against  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul.  They  are  in  print 
for  those  who  need  them,  and  will 
be  accepted  or  rejected  in  accord- 
ance with  the  needs  of  individual 
readers.  Those  who  want  to  believe- 
in  a  future  life  can  do  so.  No  philo- 
sopher can  rob  them  of  it,  and  pro- 
bably the  arguments  are  the  stronger 
on  the  side  of  belief.  Even  if  it  be  an 
illusion,  illusion,  as  we  have  said,  is 
one  of  life's  methods.  My  wish  is  to 
insist  that,  whichever  theory  be  true, 
it  does  not  really  much  matter.  Wc 
can  do  without  the  hereafter  and  the 
Sadducee  need  not  make  us  afraid. 
The  life  here   is  sufficient   to  itself. 


a  Literary  8$an 


55 


Practically  we  admit  it,  by  the  way 
in  which  we  paint  the  supposed  next 
life  in  the  colours  of  this  ;  it  is  only 
theologically  that  we  doubt  it.  Our 
clinging  to  personal  identity  is  an 
illusion.  We  do  not  really  cherish  it 
so  much  as  we  imagine.  What  we 
do  cherish  is  living — and  what  matter 
if  we  live  again  in  our  present  indi- 
viduality or  a  new  one?  After  the 
dip  in  Lethe,  we  shall  not  know  the 
difference.  That  we  shall  live  some- 
where in  some  continuation  of  qualities 
and  forces  is  certain:  so  much 
of  immortality  is  at  least 
assured  us. 


THE 
HERE- 
AFTER 


VII 


ESSENTIAL   CHRISTIANITY 


THE  reader  may  be  aware  that 
I  have  undertaken  these  notes 
to  answer  for  myself  a  question  raised 
by  myself  a  propos  of  a  poem  by 
Mr.  Robert  Buchanan.  Here  I  have 
nothing  to  do  with  Mr.  Buchanan's 
poem,  but  only  with  one  or  two  of  the 


:  Is  Chris- 
tianity 
played 

out :' 


56 


Oc  Religion  of 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 

i.\Nin 


wild  and  whirling  answers  to  that 
question.  Mr.  Buchanan's  final  posi- 
tion— or  one  of  his  final  positions! — 
was,  I  think,  that  Christianity  stood 
or  fell  by  that  belief  in  the  hereafter 
which  we  have  just  been  discussing. 


Christ  and 
the  Life 

to  come. 


I 


T  is  perfectly  true  that  according 
to  our  English  version  of  the 
New  Testament  Christ  did  make  many 
definite  assertions  about  the  life  to 
come.  He  promised  it  as  a  reward 
to  the  righteous,  He  brandished  it  as 
a  threat  to  the  sinner.  But  we  must 
not  forget  that  Christ  confessedly 
taught  in  parables,  and  we  are  at 
liberty  to  conclude  that  He  spoke  in 
them  oftener  than  He  perhaps  felt  it 
desirable  to  admit.  It  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  He  used  the  phrase  '  the  life 
eternal '  as  Spinoza  used  it,  as  Brown- 
ing has  used  it  in  his  beautiful  phrase 
'  the  moment  eternal,'  and  it  seems 
nearly  certain  that  He  used  the  term 
Heavenly  Father  in  a  sense  very  far 
removed  from  the  customary  anthro- 
pomorphic interpretations  of  its  mean- 
ing. A  gloss  on  the  recently  dis- 
covered  gospel  reads   for  '  My  God, 


a  Literarp  a$an 


57 


my  God,  why  hast  Thou  forsaken 
me  ? '  '  My  strength,  my  strength,'  etc., 
which,  whatever  its  authenticity,  is 
not  without  significance. 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 


IN  whatever  sense  Christ  used  such 
phrases,  it  is  certain  that  His 
evangelists  have  distorted  their  im- 
portance out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
rest  of  His  teaching.  Only  thus  has 
it  become  possible  to  represent  Christ- 
ianity, as  it  was  recently  represented, 
as  a  religion  entirely  devised  for 
cloudland, 

'  a  dream  for  life  too  high, 
It  is  a  bird  that  hath  no  feet  for  earth.' 

A  more  unwarrantable  mis-statement 
could  not  well  be.  There  is  nothing 
with  which  Christ's  utterances  have 
more  to  do  than  the  life  here.  Con- 
duct— to  its  ultra-ideal  developments 
— is  His  constant  theme.  But,  objects 
the  critic,  His  very  ideals  of  conduct 
are  impossible,  quixotic,  beyond  the 
reach  of  human  nature.  Surely  an 
ideal  is  an  ideal  simply  because  it 
outsoars  human  nature.  And,  quix- 
otic or  not,  can  any  critic  of  Christ- 


Christianity 
pre- 
eminently 
a  religion 
for  this 
world. 


ss 


Cbe  Religion  of 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 


ianity  deny  that  as  men  are  seen  to 
approximate  to  its  central  teaching  of 
self-subjection  they  are  seen  to  be 
happy,  and  that  the  further  they  are 
seen  to  diverge  from  it  the  more 
wretched  do  they  become.  At  least 
Christ  put  His  finger  on  the  central 
source  of  man's  misery — eliminate 
self,  and  you  have  done  all. 


Is  Christ- 
ianity on 
the  wane? 


THE  merely  historical  question 
was  raised  whether  Christianity 
was  in  the  ascendant  or  not  at  the 
present  time.  Some,  taking  isolated 
doctrines,  such  as  the  hereafter, 
answered  in  the  negative  ;  some 
even  seemed  to  think  that,  tested 
by  that  very  central  teaching  of  self- 
sacrifice,  it  was  on  the  wane.  Man- 
kind was  harder  and  more  selfish 
than  ever.  But  this  seemed  to  have 
been  generally  felt  to  be  a  miscon- 
ception, obviously  disproved  by  the 
wide  spread  of  philanthropic  feeling, 
the  far-reaching  development  of  those 
democratic  conceptions  which  are  un- 
deniably based  on  Christ's  uncom- 
promising communism,  His  gospel  for 
the  poor. 


a  JUtetarp  ®an 


59 


It  was  gladly  admitted  that  the 
merely  ecclesiastical  incrustations  of 
Christ's  teaching  were  certainly  being 
cast  away;  but  for  that  very  reason, 
it  was  urged,  the  veritable  doctrines 
underlying  them  were  exercising 
greater  power  than  ever. 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 


SOME  said  that  those  doctrines 
claimed  to  be  '  essential '  to 
Christianity  were  no  less  the  property 
of  other  religions.  This  no  man 
would  think  of  denying.  The  signifi- 
cance of  Christ  as  an  historical  figure 
is  not  so  much  that  He  was  the  pro- 
phet of  any  absolutely  new  religious 
intuitions,  as  that  He  gathered  up  into 
one  masterful  synthesis  those  that 
had  enjoyed  but  an  isolated  expres- 
sion aforetime.  The  intense  spiritu- 
ality of  the  Hebrew,  the  impassioned 
self-annihilation  of  the  Hindoo,  the 
joyous  naturalism  of  the  Greek  :  He 
combined  all  these  in  an  undreamed 
of  unity,  and  gave  to  it  the  impetus 
of  His  own  masterful,  emotional  indi- 
viduality. 

It   was   not   the   other-worldliness 
alone    of   His  teaching    that  was  its 


The  Power 
of  Christ- 
ianity 
largely 
in  its 
composite 
character. 


oo 


Cbc  Religion  of 


I     SEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 

The 
Humanity 
as  well  as 

Spirituality 

of  Christ's 
teaching. 


significance,  but  the  everyday  hu- 
manity that  was  likewise  blent  with 
it.  Christ  preached  the  life  here  no 
less  than  the  life  eternal,  and  He  em- 
phasised both  as  no  other  teacher  has 
ever  done.  He  not  only  gave  an  im- 
pulse to  the  immemorial  intuitions 
of  man,  but  He  realised  them  with 
an  unprecedented  intensity  of  convic- 
tion. Self-sacrifice  with  Him  became 
a  passion,  the  apprehension  of  the 
spiritual  significance  of  temporal  life 
an  actual  vision.  And  He  affirmed 
both  in  wonderful  hyperboles,  which 
have  of  necessity  in  the  course  of 
time  suffered  misunderstanding  and 
distortion. 


Truth 

inevitably 
soiled  in 
its  trans- 
mission 

through  the: 
hands  of  ! 
Apostles    j 

and  Priests. 


THERE  must  inevitably,  said 
M.  Renan,  be  something  bornd 
about  the  apostle  of  any  creed,  and 
the  apostles  of  Christ  have  been 
no  exceptions  to  the  rule.  How 
Christ's  radiant  intuitions  have  been 
materialised  into  opaque  dogmas, 
no  one  need  be  told.  The  mis- 
taken aim  of  Christian  teachers  has 
been  the  mistake  of  all  teachers 
of  ideal  creeds,  to   bring   down    the 


a  Literary  Q9an 


61 


ideal  to  the  comprehension  of  the 
lower  side  of  human  nature — which 
accomplished,  it  is  of  no  further 
use. 

Organised  Christianity  has  probably 
done  more  to  retard  the  ideals  that 
were  its  Founder's  than  any  other 
agency  in  the  world.  Moral  teach- 
ing without  spiritual  significance  is 
of  little  force.  The  ecclesiastics  into 
whose  hands  Christianity  soon  fell, 
being,  as  the  majority  of  ecclesiastics 
must  be,  unspiritually  minded,  dark- 
ened the  symbolism  of  Christ,  and 
thus  deprived  the  moral  side  of  His 
teaching  of  a  great  part  of  its  motive 
force. 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 


CATHOLICISM,  for  example, 
is  simply  average  humanity 
in  a  surplice — that  is  the  secret 
of  its  hold  upon  the  world. 
It  practically  admits  that  Christian 
ideals  are  hopelessly  out  of  reach, 
though  it  theoretically  preaches  them, 
more  rigidly,  perhaps,  than  any  other 
creed.  Indeed,  as  one  very  well 
understands,  the  Catholic  Church  is 
a  form  of  symbolism.      It  is  of  the 


Catholic- 


62 


£bc  Bclittion  of 


ESSI   N 

1 1  \I. 

CHRIST- 
IANITY 


Concerning 
Priests. 


essence  of  a  symbol  that  it  stands 
for  something  which  transcends  itself. 
A  Catholic  priest,  for  example,  is  a 
symbol  of  what  a  man,  according 
to  one  mistaken  version  of  Christ's 
teaching,  should  be.  Illogical  people 
may  point  out  that  his  life  docs  not 
square  with  his  transcendental  creed. 
But  what  of  that  ?  A  man  may 
not  be  at  once  the  symbol  and 
the  thing  symbolised,  and  a  priest, 
like  a  policeman,  is  not  always  on 
duty. 


The 
Tragedy 

of  the 
Idealist. 


CHRISTIANITY,like  every  other 
form  of  idealism,  has  suffered 
degradation  at  the  hands  of  its  ex- 
ponents. Even  its  very  earliest  profes- 
sors, Christ's  own  discrples,  were  long 
in  realising  that  the  kingdom  He  pro- 
mised them  was  no  earthly  one,  and 
had  no  bearing  on  Jewish-Roman  poli- 
tics. It  is  the  tragic  fate  of  the  idealist 
ever  to  be  thus  misunderstood,  inter- 
preted with  a  base  literalness,  by  his 
own  followers.  A  throng  of  idealists 
is  an  impossibility.  Their  talk  is 
of  heavenly  bread,  but  their  thoughts 
are  of  the  earthly  ;  and  without  the 


a  Ltterarp  a^an 


miracle  and  the  twelve  baskets  full 
of  fragments  no  teacher  can  hold 
them  beyond  a  day  in  the  wilderness. 
One  recalls  the  sublime  figure  of 
Brand,  with  his  great  dream  of  a 
church  not  made  with  hands,  as  he 
strides  with  inspired  gaze  in  front 
of  his  horde  of  earthly-minded  bur- 
gesses, whose  so  different  dream  is 
but  of  a  church  of  stone  and  lime, 
with  a  tower  and  an  organ  that  shall 
put  the  neighbouring  parishes  in  the 
shade — a  poor,  little  pathetic  muni- 
cipal triumph.  Brand  is,  indeed,  the 
tragic  type  of  the  idealist  through 
the  ages,  and  his  followers  the  type 
of  his  converts. 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 

Ibsen's 
'  Brand.' 


TIME  would  seem  to  love  bitter 
ironical  jests,  and  surely  it 
had  never  a  stranger  one  to  amuse 
it  than  the  curious  logic  of  cause 
and  effect,  which,  from  a  pure  teach- 
ing of  the  spirit,  a  sweeping  crusade 
against  dogmas  and  formulae,  has 
resulted  in  an  intricate  system  of 
rites  and  ceremonies,  narrow  and  un- 
spiritual  as  was  ever  enforced  by 
Scribe  and   Pharisee  ;  which,  from  a 


The 

Paradox 

of  Christian 

History. 


64 


Cftc  Religion  of 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IAN IT  V 


teaching  of  poverty,  meekness,  and 
simplicity,  has  evolved  the  proudest 
and  most  luxurious  theocracy  known 
to  history.  It  is  thus  by  insidious  ar- 
tifice that  the  world  has  so  far  con- 
quered its  turbulent,  inflammatory 
spirits.  Not  by  repression,  but  by  a 
pretended  acquiescence  ;  not  by  the 
persecutor  but  by  the  priest,  has  the 
world  so  far  won  the  battle  against 
Christ. 

One  can  hardly  wonder  that  the 
word  Christian,  which,  maybe  for 
some  of  us,  strikes  such  a  heavenly 
chime  of  association,  should  for  many 
others  be  a  name  of  veritable  exe- 
cration ;  and,  illogical  as  it  may  be, 
the  world  can  hardly  be  blamed  for 
looking  at  the  example  before  the 
precept — of  putting  in  harsh  con- 
trast the  creed  and  the  history  of 
Christianity.  It  is  but  a  rough 
reasoner,  and  when  the  Christian 
talks  of  loving  his  enemies,  it  be- 
thinks it  of  the  Inquisition  and 
Smithfield  ;  when  he  talks  of  losing 
all  for  Christ,  it  forms  a  Titian- 
coloured  picture  of  the  Vatican  ; 
when  he  talks  of  the  happy  lot  of 


a  literary  span 


6' 


those  who  serve  the  Cross,  it  recalls 
only  a  bitter  fanaticism  which  has 
so  often  trodden  under  foot  the 
gentle  and  joyous  innocencies  of 
nature. 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 


YET,  nevertheless,  the  history  of 
Christianity  has  very  little 
to  do  with  the  teaching  of  Christ, 
and  any  deductions  drawn  from  it 
against  that  teaching  are  entirely 
irrelevant.  We  have  been  told  that 
the  world  has  tried  the  Gospel  of 
Christ  and  found  it  wanting.  To 
that  the  answer  is  simple  :  the  world 
has  never  tried  the  Gospel  of  Christ, 
and  in  this  nineteenth  century  of 
the  so-called  Christian  era,  it  has 
yet  to  begin. 


The 

History  of 

Christianity 

and  the 
Teaching 
of  Christ 
not  to  be 
confused. 


The  World 

has  never 

tried  the 

Gospel  of 

Christ. 


SOON  after  the  first  purity  of 
Christian  evangelisation  passed 
with  its  temporal  successes,  the  cere- 
monial paganism  which  it  had  driven 
out  from  the  old  temples  slily  stole 
by  the  back  way  into  the  new  ones, 
and  thus  conquered  the  young  creed 
at  the  very  moment  when  it  seemed 


Early  per- 
version of 
the  Christ- 
ian Ideal. 


66 


Cbc  IRcligion  of 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 

CHRIST- 
IANITY 


to  have  been  conquered  by  it.  The 
paganised  Christianity  which  was 
the  result,  the  world  has  certainly 
tried  and  found  wanting.  On  the 
other  hand,  fanatical  developments 
of  Christ's  teaching,  which,  in  mis- 
taken zeal  for  one  side  of  it,  neglected 
to  observe  that  harmony  of  the 
whole  which  is  so  vital,  have  been  no 
less  harmful  to  the  world.  Between 
the  ritualistic  priest  who  practically 
nullified  its  spirituality,  and  the  de- 
votee who  ignored  its  humanity,  the 
vitalising  principle  entirely  escaped, 
save  for  certain  fortunate  spirits 
and  happy  little  communities  of 
saints. 


The  World 
was  not 
ready  for 
Christ- 
ianity. 


BUT,  indeed,  the  world  was  obvi- 
ously not  ready  for  so  simple 
and  profound  a  gospel.  It  had  yet  to 
pass  through  material  preoccupations 
which  made  it  impossible  even  to 
consider  a  philosophy  that  regarded 
such  interests  with  so  mystical  an  eye. 
It  was  still  too  occupied  with  Time 
and  Space  to  waste  either  on  Eternity. 
Great  shadowy  lands  beyond  the 
horizon  of  the  world  still  glimmered 


a   Utterarp  a^an 


67 


in  the  imagination,  with  something 
almost  of  a  spiritual  mystery.  America 
and  Australia  were  still  Hesperides 
fascinating  the  adventurous  instinct  of 
man.  Great  material  forces  such  as 
steam  and  electricity  had  yet  to  be  dis- 
covered and  tamed.  Most  important 
of  all,  Copernicus  had  to  be  reckoned 
with.  We  perhaps  hardly  realise  the 
profound  spiritual  significance  of  that 
heretical  '  new '  astronomy,  which 
Galileo  might  only  whisper  under  his 
breath.  Anathematised  as  it  was  by 
the  Catholic  Church,  it  was  the  most 
truly  Christian  discovery  ever  made — 
for  it  at  once  rendered  it  possible  for 
all  men  to  look  upon  the  world  and  the 
kingdoms  thereof  in  that  true  perspec- 
tive, which  only  a  few  had  previously 
been  able  to  divine  by  fortunate 
intuition. 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 

Material 
preoccupa- 
tions. 


The  spirit- 
ual signifi- 
cance of 
Copernicus. 


The  true 

perspective 

of  Life. 


IT  may  be  said  that  our  material  pre- 
occupations are  far  from  ended, 
that  scientific  discovery  is  '  in  its  in- 
fancy ' ;  but  though  that  be  true  in  a 
limited  sense,  it  can  never  again  be 
true  as  it  was  four  hundred  years  ago. 
The   brain    of  the   world    is    not   so 


08 


ESSEN- 

I  1AI. 
CHI 
I  AM  I  \ 


A  simile 
■jf  Man. 


The  Com- 
plex is 
always 

obvious,  it 
is  the 
Simple 
that  is 

mysterious. 


C(K  Religion  of 


exclusively  employed  on  such  matters 
as  aforetime.  They  are  no  longer  so 
universally  momentous,  and,  instead 
of  covering  the  whole  domain  of 
thought,  are  now  only  provinces 
therein,  presided  over  by  specialists. 
In  short  we  have,  I  repeat,  found 
the  true  perspective  of  life.  Man, 
like  a  settler  in  a  new  country,  has 
all  these  centuries  been  occupied 
in  making  his  home  habitable,  in 
building  and  planting,  in  cutting 
roads,  in  studying  the  climate  and 
the  bearings  of  his  new  home.  Pre- 
sently, it  is  to  be  hoped,  he  will  need 
to  be  less  busied  about  these  things, 
and  be  able,  after  all  his  preparations 
for  living,  to  sit  him  down  and 
actually  begin  to  live. 

THE  teaching  of  Christ  is,  as  we 
have  said,  simple,  but  it  is  the 
simple  which  is  always  the  hardest 
to  understand :  for  complexity  like 
mechanism  may  be  puzzling,  but  it  is 
never  profound — patience  can  always 
unravel  it ;  it  is  a  compound  and 
can  readily  be  reduced  to  its  ele- 
ments ;  but  simplicity  is,  as  it  were,  an 


a  Ltterarp  a§an 


69 


element  in  itself,  and  is  profound  with 
the  profundity  of  deep  clear  water. 
The  complex  may  be  a  riddle,  but  the 
simple  is  a  mystery.  The  apprehen- 
sion of  Christ's  profound  simplicity 
is  the  reward  only  of  long  and  com- 
plex spiritual  struggle — except,  of 
course,  in  the  case  of  those  happy 
ones  who  come  into  it  at  birth 
as  into  an  inheritance.  It  is  the 
simplicity  which  can  only  come  of 
experience — or  genius. 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 


TH  E  world  has  now  passed  through 
much  of  that  experience  which 
alone  could  make  possible  its  realisa- 
tion of  Christ's  simplicity.  It  has 
sought  happiness  in  wealth,  in  empire, 
in  luxury, and  found  them  vanity;  and 
it  is  already  turning  wistfully  towards 
that  simple  life  of  the  early  world, 
which  it  lived  before  it  was  led  astray 
by  the  ignis  fatuus  of  '  civilisation.' 
If  the  Christian  era  has  exemplified 
but  little  the  Christian  ideal,  at  least 
it  has  by  its  mistakes  proved  the 
truth  of  that  ideal. 


The  World 

more 
ready  for 
Christ- 
ianity. 


7o 


&bc  Religion  of 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 

Christ 

the  one 

authority 

on  the 

Christian 

Ideal. 


AS  to  what  that  ideal  is,  Christ 
Himself  is  the  one  authority 
and  example.  It  is  idle  to  cite 
the  lucubrations  of  theologians  or 
the  unfaithful  lives  of  those  who 
are  but  Christians  in  name.  In  dis- 
cussing a  scientific  theory  we  do  not 
insist  on  its  mistaken  expounders,  we 
go  direct  to  its  original  discoverer. 
How  is  it  that  in  discussing  the  Chris- 
tian ideal  the  authority  last  referred 
to  should  be  that  of  its  Founder  ? 


Christ  mis- 
interpreted. 


CHRIST'S  teaching  was  an  im- 
passioned morality  based  upon 
a  profound  mysticism.  Very  soon 
that  mysticism  became  hopelessly 
perverted  by  teachers  incapable  of 
understanding  it,  and  the  dogmas 
into  which  it  hardened  almost  en- 
tirely obscured  its  morality  as  well. 
The  Church  soon  began  to  insist  on 
the  mere  ingenuities  of  theology 
rather  than  the  vital  necessities  of 
conduct.  Christ's  parabolic  utter- 
ances became  materialised  into  state- 
ments of  literal  fact,  and  instead  of 
a  spiritual  apprehension  of  them,  a 
merely    intellectual    realisation    was 


a  Literarp  apart 


71 


demanded.  When  Christ  declared 
that  He  had  'seen  the  Father,'  His 
earthly  listeners  at  once  pictured  a 
visible  bodily  meeting :  they  had  no 
inkling  of  that  exalted  mood  of  the 
spirit  when  the  meaning  of  the  world 
seems  to  become  suddenly  crystal- 
clear,the  solid  earth  to  grow  strangely 
transparent,  and,  like  a  dove  flying 
across  the  deep  serene,  comes  the 
clear  sweet  voice  of  the  soul  of  the 
world  calling  faith  and  peace  to  the 
soul  of  the  creature. 

When  Christ  spoke  of  the  king- 
dom of  heaven,  they  pictured  it 
simply  as  a  fairer  earth  rocking  at 
anchor  in  the  deeps  of  the  blue  sky  : 
an  essentially  earthly  kingdom  with 
good  appointments  at  court  and  un- 
limited gratification  of  earthly  de- 
sires. The  apprehension  of  it  as  a 
rapt  state  of  the  spirit,  a  state  into 
which  it  has  learnt  to  soar  above 
the  pains  and  preoccupations  of 
earthly  life,  while  still  '  in  the  body,' 
was  far  from  them.  To  tell  such 
that  the  soul  of  a  good  man  is 
heaven  is  to  disappoint,  and  even 
Giles    Fletcher's    lovely    description 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 


Giles 
Fletcher's 
'  Christ's 
Triumph 

after 
Death.' 


Cbe  Religion  of 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIS! 

IANITV 


The  true 
Chri 


of  the  peace  of  the  blest  must,  it  is 
to  be  feared,  seem  tame  to  those  who 
have  looked  for  joys  spiced  with  more 
of  the  pungent  condiments  of  earth  : 

'  It  is  no  flaming  lustre,  made  of  light  ; 

No  sweet  concent,  or well-tim'd  harmonie  : 
Ambrosia,  for  to  feast  the  appetite, 
Or  flowrie  odour,  mixt  with  spicerie  ; 
No  soft  embrace,  or  pleasure  bodily  ; 
And  yet  it  is  a  kinde  of  inwarde  feast, 
A  harmony,  that  sounds  within  the  brest, 
An  odour,  light,  embrace,  in  which  the  soule 
doth  rest.' 

It  is  only  Christ's  moral  precepts 
that  are  to  be  taken  literally :  the 
law  of  love,  the  duty  of  humility,  the 
subjection  of  self,  and  the  purifica- 
tion of  the  heart.  All  the  rest  is 
parable — mystic  hints  of  the  blessed- 
ness of  the  emancipated  spirit,  which 
are  but  darkened  and  debased  by 
ignorant  sensual  interpretations.  Be- 
yond any  teacher  that  ever  lived 
Christ  was  the  prophet  of  Love, 
through  all  its  natural  and  mystical 
developments.  That  is  His  complete 
significance.  The  true  Christian  is 
the  perfect  lover,  and  those  whom 
it  helps  to  associate  their  lives  with 
moving  names  may  '  without  usurpa- 


a  Litcrarp  apart 


73 


tion  assume  the  honourable  style  of 
a  Christian,'  though  they  cannot  sign 
the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  so  that  they 
love.     It  is  strange  to  reflect  that  up 
till  recently  the    name    of   Christian 
has   been   denied    to   such,  and   has 
been  allowed  only  to  those  who  sub- 
scribe to  the  mistakes  rather 
than    the   verities   of 
Christianity. 


ESSEN- 
TIAL 
CHRIST- 
IANITY 


VIII 


DOGMA   AND   SYMBOLISM 


WE  have  of  late  years  been  so 
aroused  to  the  great  dangers 
of  Dogma  and  Symbolism,  as  illus- 
trated by  the  adulteration  of  the  pure 
Christian  ideal,  that  we  have  been 
inclined  to  throw  the  whole  over- 
board as  ecclesiastical  lumber.  There 
are  many  whom  the  mere  use  of 
Christian  phraseology,  even  in  the 
broadest  application,  irritates  out  of 
all  sober  thinking,  so  associated  is  it  in 
their  minds  with  a  cant  which  they 


The  soul  of 
good  in 
Christian 
Dogma. 


74 


Cbe  Religion  of 


DOGMA 
AND 

SYMBOL- 
ISM 


rightly  feel  to  be  the  death  of  true- 
religion.  It  is  hardly  to  be  expected 
of  them  that  they  should  pause  to 
ask  whether  these  apparently  lifeless 
dogmas  and  symbols  do  not,  after  all, 
stand  for  living  realities,  and  whether 
some  of  them  at  least  are  not  the 
very  best  expression  we  can  have  for 
such  realities. 


The  word 
God  and  its 
alterna- 
tives. 


TO  take  the  most  primal  of  re- 
ligious conceptions,  the  idea 
of  a  Supreme  Being.  The  modern 
thinker  prefers  to  characterise  it  by 
some  cold  and  clumsy  circumlocution, 
to  speak  of  the  Great  Unknown  and 
Unknowable,  of  the  Power  not  our- 
selves that  makes  for  Righteousness,or 
maybe  simply  of  Nature  :  all  phrases 
which  fail  to  include  the  most  essen- 
tial quality  of  the  conception  they 
attempt  to  express,  namely,  its  aw- 
ful and  mysterious  majesty.  It  can- 
not be  doubted  that  the  one  English 
word  for  that  conception  must  ever 
be  simply — God.  No  new  word, 
however  skilfully  chosen,  can  ever 
equal  the  word  God,  polarised  as  it 
is    by    centuries    of    religious    usage. 


a  Ltterarp  a^an 


is    deliberately- 
one — without   any 
in    the    concep- 


To  use  any  other 
to  use  a  weaker 
difference  whatever 
tion.  The  modern  man  doubtless 
prefers  to  speak  of  Nature  from  a  de- 
sire to  escape  anthropomorphism,  but 
the  desire  is  vain.  Already  even  those 
colourless  phrases  I  have  mentioned 
begin  to  take  on  a  human  aspect,  for 
so  soon  as  a  word  is  capitalised  per- 
sonification is  not  far  away. 

BUT  the  value  of  dogma  and 
symbolism  can  be  more  con- 
vincingly illustrated  in  regard  to  con- 
ceptions less  remote  and  therefore 
more  profitable.  '  Each  great  Catholic 
Dogma,'  says  Mr.  Patmore,  '  is  the 
key,  and  the  only  key,  to  some  great 
mystery,  or  series  of  mysteries,  in 
humanity.'  One  may  prefer  the 
word  '  Christian '  for  '  Catholic,'  and 
be  disposed  to  qualify  the  exclu- 
sive nature  of  the  statement,  but 
any  one  who  has  had  any  spiritual 
(or  should  one  say  psychological  ?) 
experience  knows  it  to  be  virtually 
true.  Much  Christian  symbolism  is 
doubtless    entirely   fanciful,   but   the 


75 


DOGMA 

AND 
SYMBOL- 
ISM 


Mr.  Pat- 
more 's 
Religio 

Poetae.' 


76 


Cbe  Religion  of 


DOGMA 
AND 

SYMBOL- 
ISM 

The  Reality 
of  'Conver- 


The  Mother 
and  Child. 


great  central  symbols  are  as  ex- 
actly records  of  fact  as  any  proven 
scientific  proposition.  The  dogma 
of  Conversion,  the  New  Birth,  for 
example,  is  no  mere  figure  of  mys- 
ticism, but  a  psychological  fact  daily 
illustrated  in  the  lives  of  thousands 
of  persons.  The  change  is  not  neces- 
sarily brought  about  by  confessedly 
religious  agencies,  most  frequently  it 
comes  of  the  mysterious  workings  of 
natural  love,  but  by  whatever  chance 
influence  it  is  set  in  motion,  the  fact 
of  its  daily  occurrence  is  undeniable. 
A  man  is  a  brute  to-day,  and  in  a 
week's  time,  without  any  apparent 
cause,  he  is  seen  to  be  undergoing  a 
mystical  change  ;  a  new  light  is  in 
his  face,  and  he  is  in  every  way  a 
new  creature.  This  is  no  invention 
of  Christianity,  but  simply  a  natural 
process  which  Christianity  has  in- 
cluded in  its  body  of  spiritual  doctrine. 
In  like  manner  it  has  embodied  the 
natural  sacrament  of  motherhood  in 
the  divine  symbol  of  the  Mother  and 
Child — though  by  the  addition  of  the 
arbitrary  dogma  of  the  Immaculate 
Conception  it  has  implied  an  indig- 


a  Literary  a^an 


77 


nity  towards  the  '  natural '  process  of 
child-bearing  of  which  the  churching 
of  women  is  an  unworthy  expression. 
What  indeed  is  religion  but  a  syn- 
thesis of  the  natural  sacraments  of  life  ? 


DOGMA 
AND 

SYMBOL- 
ISM 


w 


HAT  also  is  the  dogma  that 


man  cannot  be  '  saved '  of 
himself  but  a  recognition  of  the 
obvious  fact  that  he  did  not  make 
himself,  and  the  resulting  dogma  of 
Grace  but  a  more  impressive  way  of 
stating  man's  entire  dependence  for 
his  gifts  and  his  fortunes  on  a  power 
beyond  his  own  control  ? 


Grace. 


AGAIN,  the  old  theological  fight- 
ing dogma  that  man  is  '  saved  ' 
by  faith  and  not  by  works  is  seen  to 
be  a  most  important  truth  when  we 
reflect  that  good  works  may  be  done 
from  the  worst  of  motives,  and  that, 
moreover,  among  the  faithful  they 
must  always  depend  on  the  means  at 
their  control. 


Faith  and 
Works. 


THEN  certain  methods  of  Chris- 
tianity, such  for  example   as 
prayer,  are  undeniably  based  on  deep 


Prayer. 


78 


€\)C  Religion  of 


I"  "',MA 

AND 
SYMBOL 

ISM 


1  Natural ' 
Prayer. 


needs  of  the  human  creature.  That 
it  is  an  intellectual  delusion  to  think 
that  a  supernal  power  sits  listening 
to  the  verbal  cry  of  our  often  trivial 
petitions,  that  so  far  as  hearing  in  the 
customary  sense  of  aural  communica- 
tion is  concerned  we  might  as  well 
go  pray  to  the  rocks  and  trees,  is  no 
criticism  of  the  central  truth  of 
'  prayer,'  which  I  take  to  be  a  humble 
and  yet  exalted  attitude  of  the  spirit, 
in  which  man  is  put  e>i  rapport  with 
certain  spiritual  forces,  just  as  certain 
states  of  bodily  health  make  him 
more  sensitive  to  invigorating  climatic 
conditions,  and  the  reverse.  Man 
grows  in  prayer,  as  a  plant  grows  in 
its  blind  yearnings  towards  the  sun. 

THERE  are  many  for  whom  the 
verbal  visible  act  of  prayer  is 
unnecessary,  natures,  so  to  say,  which 
can  fly  without  wings.  They  are  so 
possessed  by  the  spirit  of  prayer,  that 
all  day  long  their  eyes  are  meeting 
with  objects  which  awaken  it,  send- 
ing their  worshipping  aspirations 
soaring  aloft,  like  white  birds  flying 
towards    a   beautiful    light.       A    fair 


a  Literarp  Qpan 


79 


face,  a  liberating  prospect,  some 
perfect  wonder  of  art ;  these  and  a 
thousand  other  chance  encounters  of 
beauty,  are  enough  to  put  them,  meta- 
phorically, on  their  knees.  Others, 
probably  still  the  majority,  cannot 
attain  that  pinnacle  of  aspiration  save 
by  the  scaffolding  of  words  and  out- 
ward forms,  yet  so  long  as  they  have 
attained  it,  what  matter  how  they 
did  so  ?  The  spirit  of  prayer  like 
that  of  imagination  is  awakened  in 
different  persons  by  different  objects. 
Some  need  such  traditional  symbols 
as  the  Madonna  and  the  Crucifix  to 
inspire  it,  others  again  find  such 
symbols,  from  the  very  fact  of  their 
long  familiarising  usage,  void  of  ap- 
peal. Their  virtue  has  gone  out  of 
them.  Unfortunately  it  is  in  the 
nature  of  symbols  either  to  wear  out, 
or  to  become  mere  idols.  A  change 
of  symbols  is  one  of  those  needs  of 
humanity  that  the  Christian  Church 
has  not  recognised. 


DOGMA 
AND 

SYMBOL- 
ISM 


AND  here  we  come  to  the  central 
mistake  which  has  lessened  the 
power  even  of  such  of  her  symbols 


The  Limita- 
tions of 
Christian 
Symbolism. 


8o 


Cbe  Religion  of 


DOGMA 
AND 

SYMBOL- 
ISM 


Pan  and 

Christ  have 

both  a  place 

in  the 

human 

Pantheon. 


as  are  of  actual  truth  and  universal 
application  :  the  mistake  of  fencing 
off  certain  symbols  within  a  sacred 
enclosure,  and  saying  '  these  only  are 
holy,'  instead  of  recognising  that 
everything  moved  by  the  breath  of  life 
is  sacred  and  symbolic.  In  this  re- 
spect such  a  book  asWhitman's  Leaves 
of  Grass  is  more  helpful  than  The 
New  Testament — for  it  includes  more. 
With  our  growing  sensitiveness  to 
the  wonder  of  life,  we  are  aware  that 
there  are  great  and  beautiful  pre- 
sences in  it  to  which  in  Christian 
dogma  we  find  no  reference,  and  for 
the  embodiment  of  which  we  have  to 
turn  say  to  the  Greek  mythology, 
and  to  such  figures  as  Pan,  Aphro- 
dite, and  Apollo.  Neither  are  these 
gods  dead,  nor  is  there  actually  any 
strife  between  them  and  the  sadder 
figure  of  the  Galilean.  All  the  gods 
of  all  the  creeds  supplement  or  cor- 
roborate each  other.  One  nation 
has  been  gifted  with  intuitions  of 
certain  sacred  aspects  of  life,  another 
with  others.  The  Greek's  joy  in 
natural  life  is  a  good  thing,  but  the 
Galilean's  message  of  its  subordination 


a  Literary  a^an 


to  the  spiritual  life  was  no  less  a 
necessary  truth.  Enabled  as  we 
are  by  our  modern  historic  sense  to 
gaze  back  over  the  whole  course  of 
the  river  of  time,  we  should  be  able 
calmly  to  realise  that  every  age  has 
made  its  contribution  to  the  fabric 
of  religion  :  that  no  so-called  dream 
which  has  drawn  upward  the  mind  of 
man  has  been  without  its  spring  in 
some  appealing  need  of  his  spirit,  no 
strange  flower  of  '  delusion  '  but  has 
borne  within  it  the  seed  of  some 
exalting  ideal. 

IT  is  perhaps  idle  to  speak  of  the 
future,  for  the  future  no  more 
than  the  present  can  present  a  uni- 
formity of  religious  doctrine.  The 
old  systems  will,  of  course,  continue 
side  by  side  with  the  new  ones,  so 
long  as  temperaments  survive  that 
are  in  need  of  them.  By  the  '  future  ' 
one  rather  means  the  tendencies  of 
the  more  actively  religious  of  man- 
kind. Such  have  long  since  felt  the 
need  of  a  more  universal  symbolism, 
one  less  based  on  provincial  historical 
associations  than  much  of  the  sym- 


81 


DOGMA 
AND 

SYMBOL- 
ISM 


The 

Religion 

of  the 

Future. 


82 


Or  Religion  of 


DOGMA 

AND 
SYMBOL- 
ISM 


Mr.  Nor- 
man Gale's 
'A  Country 
Muse.' 


bolism  of  Christianity.  Many  such, 
of  course,  have  gone  out  already 
from  the  old  church  :  some  for  the 
reason  that  their  intellectual  faculties 
are  more  alert  than  their  spiritual — 
with  the  result  that  not  only  do  they 
denythe  efficacy  of  church  symbolism, 
but  deny  also  the  spiritual  facts  which 
for  others  remain  after  intellectual 
criticism  has  done  its  worst.  These 
latter,  again,  finding  their  spiritual  in- 
tuitions hampered  rather  than  helped 
by  organised  systems  of  dogma  and 
rite,  will  probably  continue  more  and 
more  to  find  their  symbols  in  the 
aspects  of  nature  and  the  creations  of 
art  ;  'content,'  like  Mr.  Norman  Gale, 

'  to  know  that  God  is  great, 
And  Lord  of  fish  and  fowl,  of  air  and  sea — 
Some  little  points  are  misty.    Let  them  wait.' 

The  recent  popular  developments 
of  the  study  of  music,  painting, 
and  literature  are  undoubtedly  due 
in  great  measure  to  the  homeless 
religious  spirit  having  taken  refuge 
in  those  and  kindred  arts — with 
Browning  and  Ruskin  societies,  Ibsen 
theatres,  Wagner  revivals,  and  Burne 
Jones  exhibitions  for  its  sometimes 


a  Litctarp  09an 


83 


grotesque  manifestations.     The  great 

dogmas  of  the  religion  of  the  future 

will  be  Love,  Beauty,  Purity,  and 

Strength — and  the  artist 

will  be  its  priest. 


DOGMA 

AJVD 
SYMBOL- 
ISM 


IX 

THE  RELIGIOUS  SENSES 

TO  speak  of  natural  religious 
senses  will  seem  redundant  to 
any  one  familiarised  with  the  obvious 
idea  that  everything  that  exists,  re- 
ligion included,  is  '  natural,'  that  : 

' .  .  .  Nature  is  made  better  by  no  mean, 
But  Nature  makes  that  mean  :  over  that 

art 
Which  you  say  adds  to  Nature,  is  an  art 
That  Nature  makes.' 

But  one  has  been  so  brought  up  to 
regard  religion  as  something  super- 
imposed upon  our  human  nature, 
rather  than  something  blossoming 
out  of  it,  that  the  habit  clings.  Re- 
ligion, we  are  accustomed  to  think, 
is     an     accomplishment    taught    in 


'  Natural ' 

Religious 

Senses. 


84 


Cbc  Ecligton  of 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 
SEN 


The 

Spiritual 
Sense. 


schools,  like  algebra,  an  '  optional ' 
subject  indeed,  and  we  may,  if  we 
will,  learn  drawing  instead.  To  think 
of  religion  as  a  natural  function  like 
seeing,  eating,  or  sleeping,  would 
seem  to  perplex  many  people,  who, 
indeed,  would  be  at  a  loss  how  to  be 
religious  without  church  and  prayer- 
book.  To  abolish  all  the  churches 
and  to  make  a  bonfire  of  prayer- 
books  would  be  a  sure  way  to  discover 
the  truly  religious. 

I  HAVE  already  spoken  of  the 
Spiritual  Sense.  By  it  I  mean 
an  attribute  of  mind  which  qualifies 
certain  people  to  apprehend  what  we 
call  spiritual  matters  better  than  other 
people  without  that  attribute.  And 
one  can  illustrate  it  by  any  of  the 
other  senses — the  Sense  of  Beauty, 
for  instance.  We  generally  admit 
that  certain  people  have  a  sense  of 
beauty,  while  others  have  not,  or  have 
it  in  but  an  elementary  degree.  We 
behold  one  man  standing  before  a 
Whistler,  with  face  irradiated  as  in 
the  presence  of  the  beatific  vision. 
To  his  neighbour  it   is  as  though  he 


a  Ltterarp  Q^an 


85 


saw  a  spirit  ;  and,  indeed,  what  the 
one  man  sees  is  as  invisible  to  the 
other  as  though  it  were  a  spirit.  '  Do 
you  see  nothing  there?'  exclaims  the 
Whistlerian.  '  Nothing  at  all,'  answers 
the  Philistine,  over-confident,  'yet  all 
that  is  I  see.'  But  there  the  Philis- 
tine is  wrong.  He  evidently  does 
not  see  all  that  is.  He  is  not  artis- 
tically clairvoyant.  And  so  in  the 
case  of  the  person  gifted  with  the 
Spiritual  Sense.  He  has  strong  in- 
tuitions of  the  love  of  God  and  the 
sanctity  and  blessedness  of  exist- 
ence. The  unspiritual  person  has 
not  these  visions.  Instead  of  learn- 
ing from  the  other,  he  denies  them  : 
yet  his  denial  is  none  the  less  ignor- 
ance, limitation  of  understanding.  In 
matters  of  this  kind  no  number  of 
negatives  are  equal  to  one  affirmative. 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 
SENSES 


THE  Spiritual  Sense,  the  primary 
of  all  the  religious  senses, 
the  gift,  so  to  say,  of  spiritual  clair- 
voyance, of  looking  beyond  matter 
to  the  mysteries  for  which  it  seems 
to  stand,  may  belong,  indeed  most 
frequently   belongs,  to  what  we   call 


'  Simple 
People.' 


86 


Cbc  Religion  of 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 

SENSES 


simple  people  :  people  quite  without 
so-called  'culture'  and  'refinement,' 
and  '  the  finer  feelings.'  It  is  not 
seldom  found,  in  ludicrous  forms 
maybe,  in  small  country  chapels, 
and  the  sympathetic  may  find  it  con- 
stantly among  members  of  the  Salva- 
tion Army.  I  know  a  '  Captain,'  an 
out-door  porter,  earning  less  than  a 
pound  a  week,  at  my  country  station, 
who  has  more  spirituality  in  his  little 
finger  than  many  a  Church  dignitary 
in  his  whole  body.  To  watch  his  face 
when  he  is  talking  of  his  conversion, 
quite  apart  from  what  he  may  be  say- 
ing (which,  indeed,  only  differs  from 
your  own  feelings  in  its  terminology), 
is  a  Church  Festival,  an  Apocalypse, 
an  apparition  of  the  Divine  in  this 
dusty,  work-a-day  world.  I  have  met 
one  of  his  railway  directors,  but  he 
was  not  half  so  interesting. 

Shepherds,  out-of-door  '  natural 
persons,'  as  Whitman  calls  them, 
lighthouse  men,  men  living  close  to 
the  elements,  most  lonely  mcn:  are  at 
bottom  intensely  religious.  The  club 
man  may,  as  a  rule,  be  taken  as  their 
antithesis.     It  is  not  the  clever,  but 


i 


a  iliteratp  8@an 


87 


the  simple,  who  inherit  the  mysteries. 
'  Woe  is  me  !  Woe  is  me  ! '  exclaimed 
anold  Schoolman,  'thesimple  brethren 
are  entering  heaven,  and  the  learned 
ones  are  debating  if  there  be  one.' 

But  in  addition  to  this  spiritual 
sense — the  religious  sense,  par  excel- 
lence— there  are  other  senses  which  in 
various  ways,  and  to  various  degrees, 
may  be  described  as  tributaries  of  it : 
such  as  the  Sense  of  Wonder,  the 
Sense  of  Beauty,  the  Sense  of  Pity, 
the  Sense  of  Humour,  the  Sense  of 
Gratitude. 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 

SENSES 


THE  Sense  of  Wonder  is  obvi- 
ously nearest  to  that  spirit  of 
worship  which  is  the  first  instinct  of 
religion,  and  Science  is  here  seen  to 
have  been  one  of  the  truest  friends 
of  religion,  for  her  discoveries  must 
have  quickened  the  sense  of  wonder 
in  many  whom  the  everyday  marvels 
of  life  leave  unmoved.  The  majority 
of  mankind  cannot  conceive  the  ac- 
customed as  wonderful,  and  the  sense 
of  wonder  is  really  least  in  that  gap- 
ing populace  which,  at  first  sight, 
may  seem  to  have  most  of  it.     The)' 


The  Sense 

of  Wonder. 


88 


die  Religion  of 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 

SENSES 


are  incapable  of  realising  the  wonder 
of  laws,  and  are  only  moved  by  that 
of  aberrations.     It  needs  a  comet  to 
arouse   their   sense   of    astronomical 
mysteries.      The  loveliest  fixed  star 
shines   for  them  in  vain,  merely  be- 
cause  it    is    '  fixed '   and   they   have 
seen  it  before.     Monstrosities,  '  novel- 
ties,' '  accidents,'  '  miracles,'  are  their 
stimulants.      In   an  average  six-foot 
man  they  see  nothing  to  marvel  at, 
but  a  'Chinese  giant'  of  eight  feet 
they  will  pay  much  to  see.     Hence 
Madame  Tussaud's  and  the  Catholic 
Church.       It    is    to    be    feared    that 
Madame    Tussaud's    stimulates    but 
little  the  sense  of  the  higher  mysteries 
of  existence  ;  yet,  at  the  same  time, 
wherever  we  have  the  sense  of  wonder, 
in  however  gross  a  form,  we  have  one 
of  the  germs  of  that  spiritual  insight 
which  sees  the  world   and   the  most 
'  everyday '  fact  in  it  bathed   in  that 
strange  light  which  for  some  is  never 
gone  from  sea  or  land.    Any  one  with 
the  sense  of  wonder  must  be  to  some 
extent    religious,    must    be    emanci- 
pated in  some  measure  from  the  dull 
materialism  of  his  fellows. 


a  Ltterarp  e$an 


89 


THE  Sense  of  Beauty,  however, 
is  not  necessarily  a  religious 
sense — save  in  so  far  as  it  gives  birth 
to  the  sense  of  wonder,  of  love,  of 
gratitude.  Curiously  enough,  in  our 
own  day,  among  what  we  call  deca- 
dent artists,  we  find  its  influence  not, 
as  one  would  have  expected,  as  a 
spiritualising,  but  as  a  materialis- 
iiag,  an  actually  degrading,  influence. 
Even  when,  as  I  make  bold  to  say  of 
its  worst  forms,  decadent  art  is  not 
merely  the  expression  of  moral  men- 
tal and  spiritual  disease,  lusts  that 
dare  no  other  operation  finding  vent 
in  pictorial  and  literary  symbolism, 
even  when  it  retains  a  certain  inno- 
cence and  health,  it  does  its  best  to 
limit  its  appeal  to  what  we  call  the 
sensual  faculties.  It  merely  addresses 
the  sensual  eye  and  ear  the  more  ob- 
viously, and  endeavours  desperately 
to  limit  beauty  to  form  and  colour, 
scornfully  ignoring  the  higher  sensi- 
bilities of  heart  and  spirit.  The  ideal 
of  the  decadent  artist  is  the  cuisine. 
The  appreciation  he  expects  is  no  dif- 
ferent in  kind,  and  little  in  degree,  from 
that  we  give  to  a  choice  dish  or  a  new 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 

SENSES 


The  Sense 
of  Beauty. 


Its  de- 
gradation 
in  '  Decad- 
ent '  Art. 


90 


Cf)c  Religion  of 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 

SENM 


liqueur.  The  spirit,  the  heart,  the 
intellect  cannot  be  said  to  take  part 
in  the  appreciation  of  the  most  ex- 
quisite cookery  ;  and  similarly  there 
is  nothing  for  the  spirit,  the  heart,  or 
the  intellect  in  the  specially'  modern' 
decadent  art. 


'  Decad- 
ence ' 
mainly  a 
disregard  of 
proportion. 


THIS  decadence  is  simply  the  re- 
sult of  that  modern  disregard 
of  proportion  of  which  I  shall  have 
to  speak  again.  It  would  almost 
seem  that  the  relative  spirit  has  car- 
ried us  so  far  that  we  have  come 
to  deny  not  only  ulti mates,  but  re- 
lations also.  Decadence  is  founded 
on  a  natural  impossibility  to  start 
with.  It  attempts  the  delineation  of 
certain  things  and  aspects  in  vacuo, 
isolated  from  all  their  relations  to 
other  things  and  their  dependence 
on  the  great  laws  of  life.  Its  posi- 
tion is  as  absurd  as  that  of  an  artist 
who  should  say :  I  will  paint  this 
figure  in  but  two  dimensions,  and 
will  give  it  no  length  ;  or  one  who 
would  say  :  I  will  paint  this  summer 
landscape,  but  omit  all  reference  to 
sunlight.     So  hardly  less  vainly  does 


a  Hiteratp  0@an 


91 


I 


the  decadent  attempt  to  ignore  cer- 
tain conditions  of  his  theme,  which, 
actually,  it  is  impossible  to  ignore. 
To  take  that  unsavoury  example  of 
the  prismatic  hues  of  corruption, 
taught  us  by  Baudelaire.  It  is  per- 
fectly true,  of  course,  that  a  decaying 
body  manifests  certain  beauties  of 
colour,  but  to  enjoy  them  to  the  full 
one  needs  first  of  all  to  suspend  one's 
sense  of  smell — to  hold  one's  nose, 
in  short.  So  it  is  with  many  pro- 
ducts of  modern  art.  To  enjoy  them 
with  any  pleasure  you  have,  in  one 
way  or  another,  to  hold  your  nose. 
They  may  appeal  to  one  sense  of 
beauty,  but  they  offend  others  ;  for 
surely  it  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that 
the  sense  of  beauty  is  one,  a  mere 
sensibility  of  eye  and  ear.  May  not 
smell  even  be,  so  to  say,  an  olfactory 
sense  of  beauty  !  What  many  speak 
of  as  a  sense  of  beauty  is  merely  a 
sense  of  colour  and  form,  and  it  were 
well  enough  if  the  impressions  of 
objects  were  confined  to  colour  and 
form — but,  need  one  say,  they  are  not, 
but  go  much  deeper.  Moral  beauty 
and   spiritual    beauty   are   not   mere 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 
SENSES 


Limited 

Definitions 

of  the 

Sense  of 

Beauty. 


Beauty 
more  than 
Form  and 

Colour. 


92 


Cbc  Religion  of 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 
SENSES 


metaphors  ;  and  a  picture  or  a  book 
which,  whatever  its  appeal  to  our 
sense  of  form  and  colour,  violates  the 
sanctities  of  life  or  ignores  any  of  its 
conditions,  is  not,  properly  speaking, 
a  thing  of  beauty,  a  work  of  art. 


NOT,  of  course,  that  I  mean  for 
a  moment  that  art  must  be 
definitely  moral  or  didactic.  It  has 
nothing  to  do  with  morals — only,  so 
to  say,  with  spirituals.  Many  people 
seem  to  confuse  the  moral  and  the 
spiritual.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the 
spiritual  must  often  of  necessity  be 
the  immoral.  A  man's  subject  may  be 
as  so-called  '  immoral '  as  he  pleases 
so  that  he  is  able  to  treat  it  spiritu- 
ally, or  shall  we  say  symbolically,  in 
its  relation  to  the  whole  of  life. 

But  supposing  beauty  to  be,  as  cer- 
tain modern  artists  say,  merely  a  mat- 
ter of  form  and  colour,  is  it  not  logical 
that  the  artist  should  confine  himself 
for  his  themes  to  objects  which  have, 
or  at  least  suggest,  nothing  but  form  or 
colour — if  such  are  to  be  found  ?  One 
is  ready  to  admit  that  the  whole  mys- 
tery of  life,  '  the  pathos  of  eternity,'  is 


a  Literary  a^an 


to  be  found  in  a  curve.  Colour  in  itself 
is  a  mystery,  and  are  there  not  trance- 
like moments  when  suddenly  we  ask 
ourselves,  why  a  coloured  world,  why 
a  blue  sky,  and  green  grass,  why  not 
vice-versa,  or  why  any  colour  at  all  ? 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 

SENSES 


BUT  the  difficulty  is  that  when  an 
artist  paints  men  and  women,  he 
paints  objects  which  imply  more  than 
form  and  colour,  implications  that  it 
is  impossible  to  escape  or  elude.  The 
artist  may  answer  that  he  is  able  to 
elude  them.  To  him,  as  it  appears  his 
mother  is  to  Mr.  Whistler,  a  man  is 
simply  an  arrangement  of  form  and 
colour.  He  is  able  to  paint  pain  with- 
out pity  and  foulness  without  repulsion. 
Yet  though  he  be  able  to  achieve  this 
detachment  from  humanity,  this  ab- 
sorption in  paint,  his  brush  will  have 
proved  itself  more  sensitive,  and  have 
thwarted  the  artist's  narrowness  of 
intention.  In  spite  of  himself  he 
will  have  painted  a  man,  though  he 
may  persist  in  calling  his  picture  an 
arrangement.  In  the  empire  of  life,  art 
is  but  a  province,  and,  like  the  artist,  is 
subject  to  greater  laws  than  its  own. 


Men  and 

Women 

imply  more 

than  Form 

and  Colour. 


Art  subject 

to  greater 

laws  than 

its  own. 


94 


Ci)C  IRcligion  of 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 
SENSES 


WE  may  conclude,  then,  that  the 
sense  of  beauty  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  religious  force,  but  that  in  so 
far  as  it  tends  to  materialism  and  in- 
humanity it  may  be  a  potent  anti-reli- 
gious one.  It  is  from  a  perception  of 
these  dangers  that  religious  teachers 
have  so  often  been  antagonistic  to  art. 
On  the  other  hand,  that  it  may  be 
a  religious  force  of  no  less  power,  in 
so  far  as  it  impresses  us  with  a  sense 
of  the  sacred  significance  of  life,  is 
equally  plain. 


The  Sense 

of  Pity 

often 

Jeadened 

by  the 

Sense  of 

Beauty. 


ANOTHER  religious  sense  which, 
we  have  just  hinted,  the  sense  of 
beauty  does  not  seem  to  stimulate,  is 
the  sense  of  pity,  bound  up  as  it  is 
with  the  conception  of  self-sacrifice. 
The  person  whose  sense  of  beauty  is 
extremely  developed  is  apt  to  be  some- 
what cruel  in  his  attitude  towards 
those  who  do  not  arouse  his  favourite 
sense.  To  be  plain,  with  him,  is  to 
be  despised  ;  'to  be  fat'  literally,  as 
with  Falstaff,  '  to  be  hated.'  He 
cares  for  nothing  but  fair  and  dis- 
tinguished persons  and  things.  He 
has  little  or  no  appreciation  of  char- 


a  Literarp  span 


95 


acter  or  virtue.  In  short,  he  is  selfish, 
and  in  a  great  measure  inhuman,  as 
it  is  the  tendency  of  all  purely  sen- 
suous pleasures  to  make  men.  Yet 
the  sense  of  pity  remains  the  divinest 
of  all  human  gifts,  and  he  who  has  it 
not  indeed  provokes  it.  It  is  by  pity 
that  the  strong  give  of  their  strength 
to  the  weak,  the  happy  to  some 
extent  bring  compensation  to  the 
wretched  :  pity  is  nature's  correlative 
for  pain,  the  gentle  equaliser  of  life's 
cruel  inequalities. 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 
SENSES 


I  HAVE  heard  it  asked  by  cynical 
young  men,  who  imagine  that  re- 
ligion is  at  an  end  because  they  have 
none  themselves :  But  why  should  I 
live  for  others  ?  Where  is  this  law  of 
love  in  nature  ?  Where,  one  might  ask, 
is  it  not  ?  Nor  could  a  question  more 
completely  illustrate  the  anarchy  of 
thought  which  is  at  the  bottom  of 
many  of  our  '  present  discontents.' 
The  conception  of  self-sacrifice  is,  of 
course,  no  invention  of  Christ,  or  any 
one  teacher :  it  is  the  inevitable  out- 
come of  social  existence.  It  com- 
menced long  ago  when  barbaric  man 


Why  should 
I  live  for 
others  ? 


96 


Cbc  Religion  of 


THE  RE- 
I.M.I 
SENsi   3 

Unselfish- 
ness an 
inherent 
condition  of 

Society. 

The  birth 

of  an  Ideal. 


first  realised  that,  if  he  and  his  fellows 
were  to  live  together  in  any  comfort, 
it  could  only  be  on  some  basis  of  give 
and  take.  To  live  absolutely  each 
man  for  himself  could  not  be  possible 
if  all  were  to  live  together.  In  course 
of  time,  in  addition  to  the  utility, 
certain  more  sensitive  individuals 
began  to  see  a  charm,  a  beauty,  in  this 
consideration  for  others.  Gradually  a 
sort  of  sanctity  attached  to  it,  and 
Nature  had  once  more  illustrated  her 
mysterious  method  of  evolving  from 
rough  and  even  savage  necessities 
her  lovely  shapes  and  her  tender 
dreams.  To  assert,  then,  with  some 
recent  critics  of  Christianity,  that  that 
law  of  brotherly  love  which  is  its 
central  teaching  is  impracticable  of 
application  to  the  needs  of  society,  is 
simply  to  deny  the  very  first  law  by 
which  society  exists. 

Self-sacrifice  is  no  ideal  dream  of 
a  gentle  soul,  it  is  seen  to  be  a  con- 
dition of  man's  happiness  evolved  by 
Nature  for  herself  out  of  the  depths  of 
her  own  rough  heart ;  and  if  from  the 
stern  strife  of  conflicting  needs  so  fair 
a  flower  has  come,  how  true  seems 


a  Uttetarp  e$an 


97 


the  intuition  of  the  mystic  that  God 
Himself  may,  after  all,  be  Love. 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 

SENSES 


I  HAVE  spoken  of  another  sense 
not  usually  associated  with  re- 
ligion. The  sense  of  humour  has 
often  indeed  seemed  an  anti-re- 
ligious force.  It  has  ridiculed  the 
eccentricities  of  the  pious,  the  in- 
sincerities of  the  devout,  the  soul  of 
evil  in  things  good.  It  has  all  along 
been   the  candid  friend   of  religion. 

O 

Therein,  of  course,  it  has  done  real 
service.  In  our  own  day  we  have  seen 
it,  in  the  hands  of  certain  witty 
paradoxers,  do  more  to  hasten  the 
disintegration  of  narrow  religious 
conventions  than  all  the  German 
commentators  together.  But  it  is 
now  time  for  these  gentlemen  to 
stop.  They  seem  in  danger  of  going 
too  far,  of  confusing  the  true  and  false 
together.  Recent  humour  begins 
almost  to  imply  that  goodness  in 
itself  is  ridiculous,  and  it  would  seem 
really  to  believe  its  own  witticism 
that '  a  colour-sense  is  more  important 
than  the  Fear  of  God.'  In  fact,  our 
humour,   like   our   art,   has,   for   the 


The  Sense 
of  Humour. 


98 


di\)t  IRciicTion  of 


l  RE- 

i.n.ious 

.SES 


The  '  New 
Humour.' 


present,  lost  its  humanity.  And  what 
is  humour  if  not  the  staunchest  of 
humanists?  Yet  the  '  new  humorist' 
is  the  bitterest,  most  uncomfortable, 
creature  that  crawls  the  planet. 
Kindness  is  surely  the  soul  of  hum- 
our ;  but  for  it  we  have  substituted  a 
biting  cynicism,  cruel  as  the  east  wind. 
Our  humour  is  indeed  anaemic  with 
over  refinement.  It  cringes  too 
daintily  from  'the  Philistine'  and 
'  the  bourgeois '  ever  to  be  good 
fun.  We  might  indeed  define  '  the 
New  Humour'  as  'the  Ill-natured 
Remarks  of  the  Superior  Person.' 


Proportion 
the  vital 

principle  of 
Humour. 


MOREOVER,  it  is  in  equal 
danger  on  another  hand. 
Like  art,  it  is  failing  to  ob- 
serve that  proportion  which  is  in- 
deed its  vital  principle.  It  laughs, 
or  rather  sneers,  at  everything  in- 
discriminately, and  when  humour 
does  that  it  is  near  its  end.  It 
observes  no  reticences,  respects  no 
sensibilities,  reveres  no  sanctities. 
In  the  two  words,  Ill-nature  and 
Sacrilege,  we  have  it  all.  It  is  mainly 
responsible  for  that  lack  of  reverence 


a  Literary  $9an 


99 


which  is  one  of  the  most  depressing 
features  of  the  time.  Till  it  recog- 
nises its  proper  place  in  the  scheme 
of  existence,  remembers  once  again 
that  there  are  holy  things  in  life 
which  it  must  not  approach,  beauti- 
ful things  it  must  not  degrade,  sad 
things  for  which  it  once  had  tears — it 
is  no  longer  a  friend,  but  one  of  the 
worst  enemies  of  man. 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 
SENSES. 


The  proper 
Limits  of 
Humour. 


THE  sense  of  humour  of  which  I 
was  thinking  as  an  ally  of  re- 
ligion was  more  on  the  old  pattern. 
I  was  thinking  especially  of  that  very 
essential  gift  which  it  seems  to  have 
lost  awhile,  the  perception  of  dispro- 
portion. Granted  this  gift,  there 
seems  to  me  no  action  of  the  mind 
fitter  to  induce  in  man  that  attitude 
of  humility  which  is  one  of  the  first 
principles  of  religion.  It  exults  in 
the  constant  appreciation  of  contrasts, 
often  invisible  to  other  eyes.  It  sees 
human  life  vain  and  swaggering, boast- 
ing itself  of  its  glory  and  power  like  a 
Nebuchadnezzar,  and  it  turns  its  eyes 
upon  the  fixed  stars,  which  have  seen 
so    many   Nebuchadnezzars,  and    it 


Humour 
the  parent 
of  Humilitv 


The  Tears 
of  Humour. 


IOO 


Cbc  Religion  of 


THE  Kl.. 
I.K.IOUS 
SENSES 


smiles,    but    a    tear    steals    into    its 
smile. 


The 
Selfishness, 

Misery,  and 

Tragedy  of 
Life  largely 

due  to  a 
I    t   k  of 

Humour. 


THERE  is  no  power  in  man 
more  fitted  to  produce  social 
harmony,  to  slay  the  devil  of  self, 
than  the  sense  of  humour.  What 
makes  a  great  part  of  the  misery 
of  life  but  our  pretence  of  caring 
for  certain  baubles  more  than  we 
really  do,  or  at  least  should,  given  a 
sense  of  humour  ?  Most  tragedies 
arise  entirely  from  a  lack  of  humour. 
When  we  are  jealous  and  passion- 
ate, the  sense  of  humour  would  teach 
us  to  stop  and  consider.  When 
we  elbow  and  hustle,  the  sense  of 
humour — as  well  as  the  sense  of 
charity — would  teach  us  to  give  way. 
Is  your  heart  set  on  this  particular 
coral  and  bells? — You  would  say 
to  those  who  would  surpass  you  in 
some  petty  way,  who  would  sit  in  a 
better  place  than  you,  or  otherwise 
wear  feathers  in  the  cap.  Well,  evi- 
dently your  necessity  is  greater  than 
mine  ;  take  it !  And,  instead  of  tear- 
ing each  other,  you  both  part  happy, 
he  happy  with  it,  you   still    happier 


a  Citetarp  £@an 


IOI 


without  it.  Humour,  then,  is  a  religi- 
ous force  in  that  it  discounts  fictitious 
values,  and  minimises  the  petty  rival- 
ries of  existence.1 


THE  RE- 
LIGIOUS 
SENSES 


BUT  more  than  any  other  sense 
at  all,  we  need  one  which 
Epictetus  was  constantly  preaching 
as  the  great  need  of  man,  ever  so 
long  ago  ;  simply  '  a  grateful  disposi- 
tion,' the  sense  of  gratitude.     There 

1  After  writing  these  remarks  on  humour  as  a 
religious  force  I  was  pleased  to  find  the  following 
confirmatory  passage  in  some  beautiful  meditations 
by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  entitled  Com- 
munings  of  a  Day : — '  But  to  deliver  sympathy 
from  taint  of  sickliness,  to  relieve  strong  self-dis- 
cipline of  outward  harshness,  to  give  character 
effectiveness,  to  show  the  true  naturalness  of  the 
supernatural  element  in  Christian  character,  we 
do  need  that  quality  which  has  been  well  described 
as  "  often  touching  us  into  vitality,  when  sweetness 
alone  would  cloy  or  sicken  ;  which  helps  us  to  see 
ourselves  as  we  are,  and  others  as  they  desire  to 
be ;  whose  springs  lie  close  to  those  of  deepest 
pathos  ;  which  enters  into  the  very  essence  of 
wisdom,  gives  salt  to  love,  and  makes  it  strong 
instead  of  sickly."  In  one  word,  we  want  in  all 
our  life  the  touch  of  Humour.  Character — self- 
discipline — sympathy,  all  must  have  this  salt  of 
Humour,  or  they  will  lose  their  savour.  And  "as 
life  goes  on,  we  shall  feel  that  it  holds,  in  the 
economy  of  the  human  spirit,  a  higher,  brighter, 
place  than  at  first  we  at  all  recognised." ' 


The  Sense 
of  Grati- 
tude. 


102 


Tm 

i.n.i 

SENSES 


Ci;c  Religion  of 


is  little  need  to  dilate  upon  that. 
Perhaps  nothing  is  so  characteristic 
of  man  as  his  lack  of  gratitude.  It 
shows  deep  in  him  from  the  beginning 
of  his  existence,  and  we  can  but  hope 
that  it  is  no  more  characteristic  of 
our  own  time  than  of  any  other.  Man 
forgot  to  say  grace  for  his  'creation, 
his  preservation,  and  all  the  blessings 
of  this  life,'  at  the  beginning,  and  he- 
has  gone  on  forgetting  ever  since, 
charmingly  taking  all  his  good  things 
for  granted, — not  a  word  about  them, 
— but,  should  his  little  finger  ache, 
filling  the  welkin  with  his  re- 
sounding clamour  against 
the  gods. 


POSTSCRIPT 


George 
Borrow 
and  the 
Dog- 
fighter. 


*T^HE  reader  of  George  Borrow  will 
remember  that  amusing  scene 
where  '  Lavengro '  pays  a  visit  to  a 
fashionable  cock-pit,  and  is  introduced 
to  the  illustrious  high-priest  of  dog- 


a  Lttctarp  span 


IO* 


fighting.  The  world,  said  the  impor- 
tant doggy  little  man,  was  soon  to 
leave  everything  else  and  take  to 
dog-fighting.  Lavengro,  with  the 
'  greenness '  of  a  greater  and  simpler 
mind,  ventured  in  his  innocence  to 
doubt  it.  Why,  retorted  the  little 
great  man,  what  was  there  in  life 
a  man  would  not  give  up  for  dog- 
fighting  ?  Naively  answered  Laven- 
gro,— '  There 's  religion.'  How  one 
blushes  for  the  innocent  country-bred 
youth,  with  his  pathetic  ignorance  of 
'  life,'  so  provincial,  so  unfashionable. 
Yet,  oddly  enough,  he  was  right. 
Dog-fighting  is  no  more,  and  religion 
still  makes  shift  to  survive. 


POST- 
SCRIPT 


BUT  in  other  guises,  that  dog- 
fighter  is  still  with  us.  His  latest 
evangel  has  been  that  of  the  demi- 
monde and  the  music-hall.  Soon,  he 
has  prophesied,  '  domesticity,'  with 
all  its  irksome  restraints,  shall  be  no 
more.  Repent,  for  a  Walpurgis  night 
is  at  hand  when  men  and  women 
shall  once  more  run  on  all  fours  as 
dogs,  and  revel  in  the  offal  of  the 
streets.    O  happy  era  of  liberty,  when 


The 
Evangel 
of  the 
Demi- 
monde and 
the  Music- 
hall. 


io4 


Cftc  Religion  of 


POST- 
SCRIPT 


The 
Dream  of 
the  Deca- 
dent. 


the  talon  is  free  of  the  sheath  for  ever, 
and  lust  may  run  without  his  muzzle  ; 
when  every  one  may  be  as  indecent 
as  his  heart  wishes,  and  he  who  loves 
the  gutter  may  lie  therein  without 
reproach  ;  when  no  man  takes  off  the 
hat  to  a  woman  or  a  church,  but  all 
may  wear  it  jauntily  on  one  side, 
through  the  length  and  breadth  of 
the  land,  may  smoke  and  drink- 
unmoved  before  the  sacred  passion- 
play  of  life,  and  expectorate  with  a 
fine  carelessness,  none  daring  to  make 
them  afraid !  Such  is  the  dream  of  the 
poor  little  sensual  'dog-fighter'  of 
our  days.  Instead  of  dogs  he  sells  us 
beastly  and  silly  novels,  poetry  he 
dare  not  expose  for  sale  at  Farringdon 
market,  and  pathetic  '  advanced ' 
science  which  runs  thus  :  '  It  is  a  sad 
mission  to  cut  through  and  destroy 
with  the  scissors  of  analysis  the  deli- 
cate and  iridescent  veils  with  which 
our  proud  mediocrity  clothes  itself. 
Very  terrible  is  the  religion  of  truth. 
The  physiologist  is  not  afraid  to  re- 
duce love  to  a  play  of  stamens  and 
pistils,  and  thought  to  a  molecular 
movement.      Even    genius,   the   one 


a  iLitetarp  a^an 


105 


human  power  before  which  we  may 
bow  the  knee  without  shame,  has 
been  classed  by  not  a  few  alienists 
as  on  the  confines  of  criminality, 
one  of  the  teratologic  forms  of  the 
human  mind,  a  variety  of  insanity.' 
But  shall  we  despair  of  man's  soul 
because,  forsooth!  a  Lombroso  cannot 
find  it,  of  love  because  Paul  Verlaine 
is  a  satyr,  of  religion  and  law  because 
a  mad  poet  fires  his  little  pistol  at 
Westminster.  I  think  not.  What  are 
all  these  men  but  dirty  children  build- 
ing their  mud-pies,  and  soon  oblivion, 
like  an  indignant  mother,  shall  send 
them  all  to  bed. 

The  spring  of  a  new  era  is  in  the 
air — an  era  of  faith.  That  prophesied 
Walpurgis  night  is  already  behind  us  ; 
and  except  in  the  imagination  of  a 
handful  of  ill-conditioned  writers, 
artists,  and  '  thinkers/  who  have 
written  and  painted  and  '  thought,' 
for  each  other,  it  never  had  even  any 
potential  existence. 


POST- 
SCRIPT 


Lombroso 
on  '  the 
Man  of 

Genius.' 


MODERN  doubt'  is  very  largely 
a  newspaper  scare,  with  dis- 
appointed   journalists    for    its    paid 


'  Modern 

doubt' 

largely  a 

Newspaper 

scare. 


io6 


POST- 
SCRIPT 


dLbc  Religion  of 


The 

Census  of 

the  Happy. 


agitators,  and  were  a  census  taken  of 
the  happy  people  in  this  so-called  age 
of  despair,  the  number  would  I  fear  be 
shamefully  large.  One  has  only  to  go 
to  the  seaside  in  the  summer  to  see 
how  full  the  world  is  of  unreflecting 
gaiety.  It  contains,  it  is  true,  a  small 
percentage  of  shrill-voiced  pessi- 
mists, but  it  is  far  more  made  up  of 
excited  golfers,  joyous  bathers,  newly- 
married  couples,  merry  children, 
brave  and  patient  workers,  busy 
enthusiasts,  and  happy  dreamers. 

It  is,  doubtless,  our  duty  to  be  un- 
happy, as  it  is  the  duty  of  the  British 
workman  to  be  discontented  ;  but 
when  did  man  ever  do  his  duty  ? 
Our  very  pessimists  themselves  in 
course  of  time  marry  and  beget 
charming  children,  and  for  such  des- 
perate men  make  singularly  gladsome 
husbands  and  fathers.  The  world  is 
right  not  to  heed  its  Cassandras. 
Whatever  its  sorrows  and  its  fears,  it 
has  solid  joys  within  reach  of  which 
it  knows  the  virtue,  and  of  which  no 
weeping  philosopher  will  ever  be  able 
to  rob  it 


a  Literary  Q^an 


YET,  in  so  far  as  modern  doubt 
and  discontent  do  actually 
exist,  the  secret  of  them  is,  to  my 
mind,  entirely  in  man's  intellectual 
pride.  The  showy  results  of  modern 
science  have  flattered  us  into  the  idea 
that,  after  all,  man  can  by  searching 
find  out  God,  that  the  riddle  of  the 
universe  is  one  which  his  mind  is 
capable  of  solving — whereas  it  is  a 
riddle  that  can  only  be  solved  by 
giving  it  up.  To  '  think  '  less  and 
feel  more  is  the  one  cure  for  '  modern 
doubt.' 

FOR  has  science  actually  brought 
us  one  step  nearer  to  the 
primal  mystery  of  things?  It  has 
catalogued  the  minutiae  of  pheno- 
mena, it  has  numbered  the  stars, 
it  has  counted  the  grains  of  sand, 
— but  has  it  told  us  a  single  truth 
about  the  essence  of  these  things, 
the  mysterious  breath  of  life  which 
alone  gives  them  significance?  It 
has  indeed  quickened  and  deepened 
our  sense  of  that  mystery,  but  to  say 
that  every  new  fact  has  made  that 
mystery  more  mysterious  than  ever  is 


107 


POST- 
SCRIPT 

Intellectual 
Pride. 


Our  debt 

to  Modern 

Science. 


ioS 


Cbc  Bclirjion  of 


pos  i 

SCRIPT 


hardly  the  same  as  to  say  that  it  has 
brought  us  nearer  to  an  explanation. 
Science  can  tell  us  that  oxygen 
and  hydrogen  will  unite  under  certain 
conditions  to  produce  water,  but  it 
cannot  tell  us  why  they  do  so :  the 
mystery  of  their  affinity  is  as  dark  as 
ever.  It  can  tell  us  that  a  seed  cast 
into  the  earth  has  certain  germinating 
properties,  by  which  it  attracts  to 
itself  the  nutriment  in  the  soil  it 
chances  to  need,  and  so  on  and  so  on, 
but  what  is  that  but  a  more  elaborate 
way  of  stating  the  undoubted  fact 
that  it  grozvs.  It  explains  nothing 
of  the  miracle  of  the  flower,  nothing 
of  the  strange  influence  of  its  beauty 
on  certain  beholders.  All  the  dia- 
grams in  the  world  cannot  make  one 
a  penny  wiser  concerning  the  sacred 
mystery  of  motherhood.  Yet  the 
midwife  and  the  botanist  and  the 
chemist  all  think  they  know. 


The 

Biologist  or 

the  Poet? 


WHICH  comes  nearest  to  the 
truth  about  love — poor  Lom- 
broso's  talk  about  pistil  and  stamen,  or 
one  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets?  There 
is  a  certain  type  of  man  who  always 


a  Literarp  a^an 


109 


thinks  it  an  explanation  to  point  to 
the  root,  as  if  the  root  was  ever  any 
explanation  of  the  flower — and  as  if 
roots  themselves  had  not  deeper  roots, 
and  those  roots  had  not  roots  again 
deep  in  unfathomable  eternity.  If  the 
fine  flower  of  spiritual  love  has  its  roots 
in  coarse  and  quaint  physical  facts,  is 
it  not  thus  rather  the  more  than  the 
less  a  mystery  ?  '  Is  it  not  strange,' 
asked  Benedick,  as  Balthasar  twanged 
his  guitar,  '  that  sheep's  guts  should 
hale  souls  out  of  men's  bodies  ? ' 
Strange  indeed,  but  it  is  only  the  fool 
that  thinks  '  sheep's  guts '  an  explana- 
tion. This  same  type  always  thinks 
he  has  explained  a  phenomenon  when 
he  has  called  it  '  physical,' — as  if  the 
body  were  any  less  a  mystery  than 
the  soul, — which  reminds  one  of 
Blake's  profound  saying  that,  'even 
our  digestion  is  governed  by  angels.' 


POST- 
SCRIPT 

The 
'  Root ' 
Fallacy. 


PROCESSES  are  no  explanation 
of  results.  There  is  a  point 
where  all  the  operating  causes  seen 
working  towards  the  given  end  are 
suddenly  lost  sight  of  in  the  flash  of 
creation.     (  Out  of  three  sounds'  the 


The 

Creative 

'  Miracle.' 


I  IO 


€bc  IRcligton  of 


SCRIPT 


Where 
Science 
ends  Reli- 
n  and 
Poetry 
begin. 


musician  frames  '  not  a  fourth  sound, 
but  a  star.'  It  is  likewise  with  the 
writer  and  the  painter.  The  critics 
of  both  may  analyse  the  subtle  and 
complex  harmonies  of  words  and 
colours  up  to  the  very  moment  pre- 
ceding creation,  but  the  rapid  syn- 
thesis, '  the  miracle,'  which  makes  of 
common  dictionary  words  a  line  of 
Keats,  of  pigments  of  earth  and  oil  a 
'  Gioconda '  to  haunt  the  world  for 
ever,  escapes  them.  How  much  more 
so  is  it,  then,  with  the  master-artist 
Nature  ?  That  flower  which  Tenny- 
son took  from  the  crannied  wall, 
and  threw  down  as  a  challenge  to 
men  of  science,  still  lies  unattempted. 
All  the  sciences  together  cannot  tell 
us  properly  what  it  '  is,'  and  certainly 
all  the  sciences  together  cannot  tell 
us  '  what  God  and  man  is.'  They 
tell  us  many  small  details  *  about  it 
and  about,'  but  of  the  one  thing  we 
long  most  to  hear,  '  the  miracle,'  they 
never  have  told,  and  probably  never 
can  tell,  a  syllable.  It  is  to  the  saint, 
the  mystic,  and  the  poet,  that  we 
must  look  for  such  knowledge. 


a  Literary  ££an 


1 1 1 


ANTHROPOLOGISTS  have  re- 
cently been  attacking  religion 
by  methods  similar  to  those  employed 
by  biologists  against  love.  By  an 
elaborate  chain  of  deduction  which 
would  make  a  theologian  blush,  they 
have  decided  completely  to  their  own 
satisfaction  that  ancestor- worship  and 
such  rude  beginnings  of  religion  ex- 
plain all.  Here  again  we  have  the 
'  root '  fallacy.  To  say  that  the  first 
gropings  of  the  religious  instinct  in 
man  took  these  rude  forms  does  not 
explain  away  the  religious  instinct. 
To  say  that  a  spark  leaps  from  the 
impact  of  two  flints  does  not  explain 
the  mystery  of  fire.  It  is  Nature's  way 
to  produce  her  results  by  apparently 
the  most  irrelevant  and  wrong-headed 
means.  Supposing  that  the  anthropo- 
logists are  right,  what  does  it  matter  ? 
To  show  that  religion  as  we  now  under- 
stand it  began  as  something  very  dif- 
ferent, is  no  more  argument  against  the 
reality  of  religion  than  the  fact  that  the 
flower  began  as  a  root,  the  cousin  of 
dirt  and  worms,  would  be  an  argument 
against  the  reality  of  the  flower.  How- 
ever the  religious  instinct  has  evolved, 


POST- 
SCRIPT 


The 
Anthropo- 
logist's 
1  explana- 
tion '  of 
Religion. 


I  1  2 


&bc  Religion  of 


PO 

SCRIPT 


Renan 

on 

Religion. 


it  is  now  a  fact  in  the  constitution  of 
man,  a  fact  as  assured  as  the  organs  of 
digestion,  and  to  ignore  it  is  to  be  not 
so  much  irreligious  as  unscientific. 

LA  religion,'  wrote  Renan  in  one 
-/  of  his  noblest  outbursts,  '  n'est 
pas  une  crreur  populaire  ;  e'est  une 
grande  verite  d'instinct,  entrevue  par 
le  peuplc,  exprimee  par  le  peuple. 
Tous  les  symboles  qui  servent  a 
donner  une  forme  au  sentiment  rcli- 
gieux  sont  incomplets,  et  leur  sort 
est  d'etre  rejetes  les  uns  apres  les 
autres.  Mais  rien  n'est  plus  faux  que 
le  reve  de  certaines  personnes  qui, 
cherchant  a  concevoir  l'humanite  par- 
faite,  la  congoivent  sans  religion.  C'est 
l'inverse  qu'il  faut  dire.  .  .  .  Suppo- 
sons  une  humanite  dix  fois  plus  forte 
que  la  notre  ;  cette  humanite-la 
serait  infiniment  plus  religieuse.' 

It  is  a  strange  thing  that  the  very 
men  whose  one  dogma  is  '  evolution  ' 
should  so  persistently  ignore  the  most 
significant  illustration  of  their  own 
great  law.  If  man  were  once  an  ape, 
there  is  all  the  more  likelihood  that 
he  will  some  day  be  an  angel. 


a  literarp  apan 


113 


NO  one  less  than  the  man  of 
science  should  need  to  be  re- 
minded that  nothing  comes  into  exist- 
ence without  an  impelling  need.  If 
the  religious  instinct  had  not  thus 
arisen,  it  would  have  died  of  atrophy- 
long  ago,  and  so  soon  as  it  can  be 
proved  a  useless  attribute  man  will 
not  be  long  in  growing  out  of  it. 
The  question  is :  Are  there  not  im- 
pressions borne  in  upon  the  soul  of 
man  as  he  stands  a  spectator  of  the 
universe  which  religion  alone  attempts 
to  formulate  ?  Certain  impressions 
are  expressed  by  the  sciences  and  the 
arts.  '  How  wonderful !  '  exclaims 
man — and  that  is  the  dawn  of  science ; 
'  How  beautiful  ! ' — and  that  is  the 
dawn  of  art.  But  there  is  a  still 
higher,  a  more  solemn,  impression 
borne  in  upon  him,  and,  falling  upon 
his  knees,  he  cries,  '  How  holy !  ' 
That  is  the  dawn  of  religion.  The 
all-pervading  sanctity  of  life — that  is 
the  one  message  which,  howsoever 
encumbered  by  formulae  and  per- 
verted by  superstition,  religion  has 
had  to  deliver.  Maybe  all  those 
formulae  and  superstitions  have  been 


POST- 
SCRIPT 

The 
raison 
d'etre  of 
the  Re- 
ligious 
Instinct. 


The 

Sanctity 
of  Life. 


1 1 1 


£be  Religion  of 


SCRIPT 


the  necessary  husks  to  protect  the 
precious  seed  across  the  ages  ;  but, 
whether  or  no,  the  grateful,  reverent 
spirit  will  always  remember,  in  deal- 
ing with  such,  that  it  is  from  the  ark 
of  the  old  church  that  the  dove  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  has  flown. 


The 

Reli^i.'ii 
of  the 
Spirit. 


Joachim 
de  Lyra. 


S' 


OON  maybe  we  shall  need  no 
churches  and  no  service-books  ; 
not  in  Jerusalem,  nor  in  this  moun- 
tain, shall  we  worship  the  Father, 
but  unceremoniously  in  spirit  and  in 
truth.  '  The  kingdom  of  the  Father 
has  passed,'  said  an  old  mystic,  '  the 
kingdom  of  the  Son  is  passing,  the 
kingdom  of  the  Spirit  is  to  come.' 
As  we  look  around  us  and  see  side  by 
side  a  growing  disregard  of  the  old 
externals  of  religion,  with  an  increas- 
ingly passionate  care  for  its  informing 
essence,  may  we  not  hope  that  the 
era  of  the  Spirit  is  at  hand  ? 


Religion 

the  most 

ancient 

of  the 

Sciences. 


RELIGION  is  the  most  ancient 
of  the  sciences.  Like  every 
other  science  it  has  made  its  mis- 
takes, but  essentially  it  has  been — 
what  cannot,  perhaps,  be  said  of  any 


a  literary  &9an 


other  science — right  from  the  begin- 
ning. Man  has  not  waited  to  be 
saved  by  biology  any  more  than  he 
waited  to  be  saved  by  Christianity. 
There  has  always  been  more  than 
enough  truth  in  the  atmosphere  for 
the  needs  of  the  race.  We  are  a 
wondrously  wise  century,  and  with 
the  presumptuous  certitude  of  youth 
we  decry  the  centuries  that  have 
given  us  suck.  Yet  what  have  we 
added  to  the  sum  of  the  world's 
treasure  compared  with  the  ages 
lying  asleep  in  their  graves  ?  The 
very  ideas  over  which  we  wax  most 
proud  are  merely  applications  of  wis- 
dom which  the  past  has  been  preach- 
ing for  hundreds  of  years.  What  is 
our  boasted  evolution  but  a  corrobora- 
tion of  the  intuitions  of  ancient  Hin- 
doo sages  and  poets  ?  and  where  has 
our  crowning  dogma  of  democracy 
come  from  if  not  from  the  republics 
of  Greece  ?  Our  art  confessedly  is 
imported  from  the  past,  and  we  can- 
not even  design  a  chair  or  build  a 
house  without  going  a  century  back 
for  advice.  And  our  books — do  we 
read    our    own  ?    or    have    not    our 


115 


POST- 
SCRIPT 


Our  vast 

debt  to 

the  Past. 


Our  most 
distinc- 
tively 

'  modern  ' 
Ideas. 

Evolution. 


Demo- 
cracy. 

Art. 


Literature. 


n6 


Cfjc  Religion  of 


POST- 
SCK1 1'  I 


Religion. 


libraries  been  written  for  us,  from 
ceiling  to  floor,  by  the  dead  ?  We 
turn  our  faces  to  the  future  as  if  there 
lay  our  treasure,  and  the  past,  like  an 
old  and  faithful  friend,  stands  un- 
heeded at  our  side.  But  the  wise 
and  the  grateful  soul  is  not  so.  He 
lives  in  the  constant  thought  that  all 
he  is  the  past  has  made  him,  and  he  is 
very  tender  to  '  the  old  perfections 
of  the  earth ' — to  borrow  a  beautiful 
phrase  of  Lord  De  Tabley's. 

And  of  religion  this  is  truest  of  all. 
The  great  prophets  and  saints  belong 
to  the  past.  Their  message  is  some- 
times swaddled  in  antiquated  ver- 
biage, but  we  do  not  cast  away  our 
old  poets  for  that  reason,  and  with 
one  as  the  other  we  have  only  to 
translate  them  into  the  language  of 
our  own  time  to  find  their  message 
true  to-day  as  of  old.  As  a  modern 
painter  must  learn  from  the  old 
masters,  so  must  the  modern  reli- 
gionist from  his.  Rather  than  decry 
it  because,  forsooth,  we  are  such  great 
biologists,  let  us  go  down  on  our  knees 
to  the  past,  and  beg  with  all  our 
prayers  for  one  flash  of  its  old  radiant 


a  literary  a^an 


117 


clear-seeing    vision,    its    high    calm 
wisdom,  its  stern  duty,  its  loyal  love. 

ONE  delusion  indeed  what  we 
call  the  modern  thirst  for 
knowledge  has  engendered  in  us  : 
that  there  is  something  new  under 
the  sun  ;  that  our  doubts  and  diffi- 
culties are  new,  and  that  our  new 
teachers  must  find  us  new  answers. 
The  censors  of  modern  literature  are 
continually  crying  aloud  for  a  new 
message.  Where  is  the  new  prophet 
who  will  give  peace  to  our  souls?  A 
very  short  time  ago  Browning's  was 
the  new  message,  Whitman's,  Emer- 
son's, Carlyle's,  Ruskin's,  Tennyson's. 
Was  ever  age  more  rich  in  prophets 
and  in  great  messages  ?  But  what 
have  we  done  with  them  ?  Have  we 
realised  them  in  our  lives,  quite  used 
up  every  available  particle  of  their 
wisdom  ?  And  yet  here  are  we 
hungry  and  clamouring  again.  The 
truth  is  that  the  men  who  cry  out  for 
new  messages  mean  rather  new  sensa- 
tions of  doubt.  It  is  not  peace  they 
want,  but  fresh  perplexity. 

For  peace   is   no   new  thing,  any 


POST- 
SCRIPT 


The  Cry 

for  a 
1  Message. 


i  [8 


POST- 

scrum 


Cbc  Religion  of 


more  than  perplexity.     There  is  no 
quiddity  of  unbelief  that    is    not  to 
be  found   in  mouldering  parchment- 
older    than    the    religion    of    Christ. 
There  is  no  assurance  of  faith  that 
may  ever  be  given  us  which  has  not 
long    ago    tranquillised    the  souls  of 
forgotten  saints.     All  the  great  men 
are  of  one  mind.     Their  message  is 
simple — so  simple  that  we  put  it  by. 
It  seems  so  childish  to  our  cultivated 
intelligences  to  say — Love  God  and 
love  one  another.     The  old  prophets 
babbled  that    long    ago.     Yes,    and 
the  prophets   to   come  will    but   re- 
peat   the    same    message    in    other 
forms.    Truth  always  comes,  as  Christ 
came,  in   the  garb  of  absolute  sim- 
plicity.    He  seems  a  mere  child  or 
peasant  person.     The  learned  doctors 
will  have  none  of  Him.     Love  God 
and  love  one  another  !     Is  that  all  ? 
That  have  we  known   from  our 
youth   up.      Yet    is    there 
nothing  else  to  say. 


THE  END 


a  Literary  a^an 


ii9 


'  Because  thou  hast  seen  Me,  thou  hast  believed  : 
blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have 
believed.' — St.  John  xx.  29. 

1  Blessed  are  the  meek  :  for  they  shall  inherit  the 
earth. ' — St.  Matthew  v.  5. 


'  This  was  thy  daily  task,  to  learn  that  man 
Is  small,  and  not  forget  that  man  is  great.' 

— A.  C.  BENSON. 


V 


I   MM  RMTY  OF  CALIFORNIA   LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

I  his  book  is  DLL  on  the  List  date  stamped  below. 


Form  L9-32m-8,'58(5876s4)444 


-*-     ^<cij--lj  criuir^     — 


'<-881     The  religion  of 

-£28 a  lil.er^ry 

man. 


M    000 


373  264    1 


PR 

^881 

R28 


LEs' 


